as in to calcify
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Recent Examples of ossify
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
Ukrainian and Russian goals through the end of 2022 are therefore on a collision course: one side is working to prevent the conflict from ossifying along a frozen line of contact while the other works to attain precisely that outcome.
—Dara Massicot, Foreign Affairs, 15 Aug. 2022
See All Example Sentences for ossify
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
Ukrainian and Russian goals through the end of 2022 are therefore on a collision course: one side is working to prevent the conflict from ossifying along a frozen line of contact while the other works to attain precisely that outcome.
—Dara Massicot, Foreign Affairs, 15 Aug. 2022
See All Example Sentences for ossify
Recent Examples of Synonyms for ossify
Verb
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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
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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
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The legal battle had crystallized Lachlan’s anger at his siblings for never recognizing his business record.—
Gabriel Sherman,
Vanity Fair,
14 Jan. 2026
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The idea crystallized on one of her early trips back to Ghana.—
Essence,
Essence,
14 Jan. 2026
Verb
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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
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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
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The honey was too thick and caused the sauce to kind of coagulate.—
Brittany Loggins,
Bon Appetit Magazine,
17 Dec. 2025
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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
Cite this Entry
“Ossify.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/ossify. Accessed 17 Jan. 2026.
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