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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Petrify \Pet"ri*fy\, verb (used with an object) [imp. & p. p. {Petrified}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Petrifying}.] [L. petra rock, Gr. ? (akin to ? a stone) + -fy: cf. F. p['e]trifier. Cf. {Parrot}, {Petrel}, {Pier}.]
1. To convert, as any animal or vegetable matter, into stone or stony substance.
A river that petrifies any sort of wood or leaves. --Kirwan.
2. To make callous or obdurate; to stupefy; to paralyze; to transform; as by petrifaction; as, to petrify the heart. Young. ''Petrifying accuracy.'' --Sir W. Scott.
And petrify a genius to a dunce. --Pope.
The poor, petrified journeyman, quite unconscious of what he was doing. --De Quincey.
A hideous fatalism, which ought, logically, to petrify your volition. --G. Eliot.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
petrify
verb
1: cause to become stone-like or stiff or dazed and stunned; "The horror petrified his feelings"; "Fear petrified her thinking"
2: change into stone; "the wood petrified with time" [syn: {lapidify}]
3: make rigid and set into a conventional pattern; "rigidify the training schedule"; "ossified teaching methods"; "slogans petrify our thinking" [syn: {rigidify}, {ossify}] [also: {petrified}]
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
petrified
adjective
1: converted into stone
2: converted into a mineral; "petrified wood" [syn: {mineralized}]
3: so frightened as to be unable to move; stunned or paralyzed with terror; "petrified with fear"; "she was petrified by the eerie sound"; "too numb with fear to move" [syn: {numb}]
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
petrified See {petrify}
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
111 Moby Thesaurus words for "petrified": Gothic, Victorian, adamant, adamantine, afraid, aghast, alabastrine, antediluvian, antiquated, antique, appalled, archaic, asbestine, ashen, astonished, astounded, awed, awestricken, awestruck, backed, benumbed, blanched, calcified, callous, calloused, case-hardened, classical, confounded, cowed, crusted, crusty, crystallized, deadly pale, dumbfounded, dumbstruck, flabbergasted, flintlike, flinty, fossil, fossilized, frightened, frozen, granitelike, granitic, granulated, graphitic, gray with fear, grown old, hardened, hornified, horrified, horror-struck, incrusted, indurate, indurated, inorganic, intimidated, lapidified, lithic, marblelike, medieval, micaceous, mid-Victorian, mineral, numbed, of other times, old-world, ossified, pale as death, pallid, panic-stricken, paralyzed, petrogenic, reinforced, rigidified, rock, scared stiff, scared to death, sclerotic, set, shocked, silicic, slaty, solidified, speechless, steeled, stiffened, stone, strengthened, stunned, stupefied, sulfuric, sulfurous, superannuated, terrified, terror-crazed, terror-haunted, terror-ridden, terror-riven, terror-shaken, terror-smitten, terror-stricken, terror-struck, terror-troubled, thunderstruck, toughened, undone, unmanned, unnerved, unstrung, vitrified
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