ossify

Definition of ossifynext

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of ossify The final age is the modern one, with the world now mostly settled and divided up, its borders more sharply defined and ossified. Yussef Cole, New York Times, 8 Feb. 2025 Once the answers become ossified, the questions become rhetorical, and the education ceases to cultivate the child’s capacities. Ray Ravaglia, Forbes, 1 Oct. 2024 Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. Brianne Kane, Scientific American, 27 Sep. 2024 The stereotypes of retirement had not yet ossified: AARP Nation was a new territory, undiscovered if not fertile, and Jansson explored it in Sun City (New York Review Books, $16.95), now reissued in Thomas Teal’s 1976 translation. Dan Piepenbring, Harper's Magazine, 23 Sep. 2024 See All Example Sentences for ossify
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ossify
Verb
  • Over the course of the shift, his body seems to calcify with tension, as though every successive hour in the hospital adds weight.
    Sophie Gilbert, The Atlantic, 10 Jan. 2026
  • The liberal impulse — insistence that injustice isn’t cured by patience, willingness to reform systems that calcify into maladministration — can keep institutions from becoming the archives of old hierarchies.
    Robert T.F. Downes, Hartford Courant, 6 Jan. 2026
Verb
  • That moment crystallized why Zuckerberg had hired Clegg, as a kind of Chief Geopolitics Officer, in the first place.
    Bobby Ghosh, Time, 18 Jan. 2026
  • Coinbase's December announcement crystallized the trend.
    Boaz Sobrado, Forbes.com, 18 Jan. 2026
Verb
  • The former slingshots between harmony and hysteria; the latter petrifies its beauty under a haze of ashy gray powder.
    Jazz Monroe, Pitchfork, 28 Nov. 2025
  • You'll be petrified by the violence inflicted upon boys who only wanted a chance to pull their families out of financial duress and have an opportunity at a comfortable life afforded to most of us sitting in our seats.
    Haadiza Ogwude, The Enquirer, 13 Sep. 2025
Verb
  • The honey was too thick and caused the sauce to kind of coagulate.
    Brittany Loggins, Bon Appetit Magazine, 17 Dec. 2025
  • For many of the protesters, a general sense of lawlessness – not supported by official crime figures for England and Wales, which broadly show a decrease over the past decade – had coagulated into a specific fear of migrants.
    Christian Edwards, CNN Money, 12 Dec. 2025

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Cite this Entry

“Ossify.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ossify. Accessed 27 Jan. 2026.

Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
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