as in exhausted
to deprive of emotional or intellectual vitality
groupthink and peer pressure have so petrified the thinking of the company's top brass that they haven't produced an innovative product in years
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Recent Examples of petrified
The only issue is his mother Laura (Wright), a woman who has lost a child once before and is petrified of a repeat.
—
Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 5 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for petrified
Lily Ford, HollywoodReporter, 5 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for petrified
Recent Examples of Synonyms for petrified
Verb
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Maeve ends up turning Sam into the police, exhausted, dejected, and utterly defeated.—
Grace Byron,
Vulture,
6 Oct. 2025
-
They were done at the start, exhausted and weighed down by meaning and history.—
George Caulkin,
New York Times,
1 Oct. 2025
Verb
-
While in most places these efforts succeeded in the short term, over time the lived realities—particularly the everyday violence—of military rule undermined support for the royal cause, dooming efforts to resuscitate the British Empire in America.—
Time,
Time,
9 Oct. 2025
-
Whatever desire the audience might have to root for Kerr is undermined by his mounting failures in the ring and his growing friction with Dawn.—
David Sims,
The Atlantic,
9 Oct. 2025
Verb
-
The number of hopeful Gator fans left in The Swamp had drained precipitously in past weeks.—
Noah White,
Miami Herald,
5 Oct. 2025
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Some can feel lifted by this, but others might push themselves too far and end up drained.—
Victoria Edel,
PEOPLE,
4 Oct. 2025
Verb
-
The Panthers are weakened without starting running back Chuba Hubbard.—
Mike Kaye,
Charlotte Observer,
5 Oct. 2025
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Confidence in business conditions and job availability has weakened sharply, raising concerns that the spending power underpinning corporate growth could falter.—
Eleanor Pringle,
Fortune,
1 Oct. 2025
Verb
-
Red jalapeños are tasty in fresh salsas, stir-fries, and dehydrated spice blends, but green jalapeños are the best choice for jalapeño poppers.—
Lauren Landers,
Better Homes & Gardens,
8 Oct. 2025
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Sriracha was found in a car engine and had a 108-degree fever and was dehydrated.—
Maria Morava,
MSNBC Newsweek,
6 Oct. 2025
Verb
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The authors argue that those features, the intact, hyper-flexed skeletons and the absence of the disarticulation expected after ordinary decay, indicate bodies had been desiccated before burial rather than interred as fresh cadavers.—
Kaif Shaikh,
Interesting Engineering,
16 Sep. 2025
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Any cell drifting in the skies is blasted with UV rays and desiccated.—
Katherine Bourzac,
Quanta Magazine,
15 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Donkey has now been castrated, and the adorable family trio lives together in a large field with Partridge's other horses.—
Alyce Collins,
MSNBC Newsweek,
16 Aug. 2025
Verb
-
As the months wore on, the relationship between the troops and the townspeople grew more and more strained.—
Time,
Time,
9 Oct. 2025
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The royal memorably wore a Catherine Walker suit with a Hackett waistcoat at an event in April 1988 and went on to toy with fashion conventions as a modern royal.—
Julia Teti,
Footwear News,
9 Oct. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Petrified.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/petrified. Accessed 12 Oct. 2025.
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