WORD OF THE DAY
If you've ever felt so terrified you couldn't move, you've been petrified. Someone who's petrified of public speaking will do anything they possibly can to avoid giving a speech.
Petrified is from the French pétrifier, "change into stone," and the Latin root petra, "rock or crag." Its earliest definition was "converted into a stony substance," and this literal meaning describes certain rocky fossils that developed from softer organic matter, like wood. The figurative use, for a person who's so scared it seems like they're made of stone, is attributed from the 18th century.
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Vocabulary lists containing petrified
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