as in undermining
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
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for petrifying
Verb
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Common topics of health misinformation include false claims about vaccines, promoting remedies that are not supported by science and undermining scientific understanding about the causes of different health issues.—
Deidre McPhillips,
CNN Money,
3 Apr. 2026 -
Experts say multinationals and foreign investors still want a share of India's consumption story — but the country's inability to create more white-collar jobs is undermining that narrative.—
Priyanka Salve,
CNBC,
2 Apr. 2026
Verb
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Both countries aim to counter cheap, high-volume threats without exhausting high-value interceptors.—
Aamir Khollam,
Interesting Engineering,
2 Apr. 2026
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Most people who reach out to Gahl do so after exhausting nearly every other option and cycling through multiple specialists and medical centers.—
Alexandra Sifferlin,
STAT,
31 Mar. 2026
Verb
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While attacks are currently focused on financial fraud and draining the accounts of victims, InfoBlox says the level of access these trojans offer would allow expansion into extortion, blackmail, and corporate breaches including ransomware attacks on companies.—
Charlie Campbell,
Time,
7 Apr. 2026
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If root rot may be an issue, repot the plant in fresh soil, and make sure to use a well-draining pot that will keep the soil from becoming too soggy in the future.—
Karen Brewer Grossman,
Southern Living,
7 Apr. 2026
Verb
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Anthropic's showdown with the Pentagon this year left OpenAI looking like the bad guy, and just this week Bloomberg reported that demand is weakening for private shares of OpenAI in the secondary market.—
Alexei Oreskovic,
Fortune,
3 Apr. 2026
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But those safeguards appear to be weakening.—
Jennifer Elias,Jonathan Vanian,
CNBC,
3 Apr. 2026
Verb
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Campbell, the North Carolina folk singer, describes an enervating process marked by back-and-forth exchanges and lots of waiting.—
Jon Blistein,
Rolling Stone,
25 Mar. 2026
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Jenny deflected me with enervating ease.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
13 Mar. 2026
Verb
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Curry, wearing a bulky wrap around his knee, leaned back and took a long, deep breath before exhaling as the game tipped off.—
Joseph Dycus,
Mercury News,
6 Apr. 2026
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Her heart features the side profiles of two residents wearing Indigenous attire in the foreground, and a map of the city’s East Side, with street names like Indiana Avenue, Holmes Street and Troost Avenue behind them.—
Kansas City Star,
Kansas City Star,
5 Apr. 2026
Verb
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Another suggestion was requiring special sound-deadening balls, currently available, that lower the decibel levels considerably.—
John Ramos,
CBS News,
16 Mar. 2026
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Both nationally and in Minnesota , there has been a shift away from intelligent discussion of public policy to endless partisan warfare with a deadening impact on the public.—
Arne Carlson,
Twin Cities,
8 Jan. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Petrifying.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/petrifying. Accessed 9 Apr. 2026.
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