as in stubborn
sticking to an opinion, purpose, or course of action in spite of reason, arguments, or persuasion
the company's ossified management team failed to see the technological revolution that was sweeping their own industry
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Recent Examples of ossified
Dan Rockmore, The New York Review of Books, 19 Mar. 2026
The collective dream was for a new, democratic structure that could replace Assad’s ossified legal regime.
—Anand Gopal, New Yorker, 28 Feb. 2026
And he's taken aim at the foreign policy apparatus, describing institutions like the NSC and State Department as having been ossified and out of touch.
—Franco Ordoñez, NPR, 26 Jan. 2026
This year’s awards narrative was already feeling especially ossified.
—David Sims, The Atlantic, 22 Jan. 2026
The status quo—an ossified theocracy presiding over a bankrupt economy and an aggrieved populace—has already proven unsustainable.
—Ali Vaez, Time, 15 Jan. 2026
Poking out of the vertical wall of a cutbank in a seasonally dry river was a vertebra – part of the backbone – and some ossified tendons.
—Paul C. Sereno, The Conversation, 24 Oct. 2025
Really late developers, who might not be fully grown until around 20 or 21, could be 25 before their apophyseal sites are fully ossified.
—Sarah Shephard, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2025
Adjective
Lockhart, a mathematician who taught first at Brown University and UC Santa Cruz and then for many years at Saint Ann’s, a progressive private school in Brooklyn, argues that the injury is due to our ossified K–12 mathematics curriculum.
—Dan Rockmore, The New York Review of Books, 19 Mar. 2026
The collective dream was for a new, democratic structure that could replace Assad’s ossified legal regime.
—Anand Gopal, New Yorker, 28 Feb. 2026
And he's taken aim at the foreign policy apparatus, describing institutions like the NSC and State Department as having been ossified and out of touch.
—Franco Ordoñez, NPR, 26 Jan. 2026
This year’s awards narrative was already feeling especially ossified.
—David Sims, The Atlantic, 22 Jan. 2026
The status quo—an ossified theocracy presiding over a bankrupt economy and an aggrieved populace—has already proven unsustainable.
—Ali Vaez, Time, 15 Jan. 2026
Poking out of the vertical wall of a cutbank in a seasonally dry river was a vertebra – part of the backbone – and some ossified tendons.
—Paul C. Sereno, The Conversation, 24 Oct. 2025
Really late developers, who might not be fully grown until around 20 or 21, could be 25 before their apophyseal sites are fully ossified.
—Sarah Shephard, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ossified
Adjective
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Consumers were facing stubborn inflation even before the war.—
ABC News,
ABC News,
14 Apr. 2026
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But the unpopular war with Iran and stubborn affordability issues have given Democrats cause to be more hopeful about their chances of flipping key seats and even winning control of the Senate.—
Kaia Hubbard,
CBS News,
14 Apr. 2026
Adjective
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Following their Play-In loss, Leonard was non-committal about his future, but Frank was adamant about the team’s intentions.—
Janis Carr,
Oc Register,
17 Apr. 2026
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The police were very adamant from early on in the investigation that no one in the Guthrie family was involved.—
Lizzie Lanuza,
StyleCaster,
16 Apr. 2026
Verb
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Those golden years were such because they were crystalized by our approach to songwriting.—
Jonathan Bernstein,
Rolling Stone,
14 Apr. 2026
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The popularity of OpenClaw, the agent platform that OpenAI acquired, has crystallized another big AI race.—
Rachyl Jones,
semafor.com,
3 Apr. 2026
Adjective
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In that sense, the discussion around hardened container images reflects a larger shift.—
Wyles Daniel,
USA Today,
14 Apr. 2026
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To minimize the risk of this happening, teams may choose pre-hardened images from containerization services that have already secured their images.—
Felysha Walker,
Miami Herald,
10 Apr. 2026
Verb
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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
Cite this Entry
“Ossified.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ossified. Accessed 18 Apr. 2026.
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