| 释义 |
fossilize, v.|ˈfɒsɪlaɪz|
[f. fossil n. + -ize. Cf. F. fossiliser.]
1. a. trans. To turn or change into a fossil.
1794Hunter in Phil. Trans. LXXXIV. 407 Bones that are fossilized become so in the medium in which they were deposited at the animal's death. 1854F. C. Bakewell Geol. 32 ‘Petrifying wells’ do not, however, fossilize the things put into them. 1878Huxley Physiogr. 229 There is much more likelihood that the remains of animals..should be fossilized.
b. intr. To become, or be changed into, a fossil.
1828in Webster; and in later Dicts.
2. fig.
a. trans. ‘To cause to become antiquated, rigid, or fixed’; ‘to place beyond the influence of change or progress’ (Webster 1864); rarely, to preserve as if in fossil form.
b. intr. for refl.
a.1856Mrs. Browning Aur. Leigh viii. 532 Ten layers of birthdays on a woman's head Are apt to fossilise her girlish mirth. 1862R. H. Patterson Ess. Hist. & Art 98 Poetry,— which last century became temporarily fossilised from a slavish worship..of antiquated models. 1877A. B. Edwards Up Nile iv. 100 Sakkarah fossilises the name of Sokari, one of the special denominations of..Osiris.
b.1864Webster, Fossilize, to become antiquated, rigid, or fixed, beyond the influence of change or progress. 1888Co-op. News 2 June 550 If it is to flourish, and not fossilize.
3. intr. To search for fossils. colloq.
1845Lyell Trav. N. Amer. I. 158, I fossilized for three days very diligently.
Hence ˈfossilized ppl. a.; ˈfossilizing vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1819G. S. Faber Dispensations (1823) I. 124 No proper fossilized portion of the human subject has ever yet been detected. 18..Lyell Princ. Geol. (1875) I. i. xiv. 314 The Fossilizing process. 1861Stanley Lect. Eccl. Hist. p. xxxviii, The fossilised relics of the old Imperial Church. 1887Frith Autobiog. I. xviii. 228 The Academy ‘has changed all that’, as well as other fossilized rules. 1891Athenæum 28 Nov. 715/1 The fossilizing influence of the patristic theologians. |