| 释义 |
ossify, v.|ˈɒsɪfaɪ|
[f. L. os, ossi- bone + -fy: cf. F. ossifier (1709 in Hatz.-Darm.).]
1. intr. To become or turn into bone; to change from soft tissue into bone.
1713Cheselden Anat. i. i. (1726) 5 Flat bones..begin to ossify in a middle point. 1741A. Monro Anat. Bones (ed. 3) 32 They become more solid,..and at last ossify. 1872Mivart Anat. 63 The walls of the two concave vertebral articular cups may ossify.
b. fig. To become hardened and callous; to become rigid and fixed as regards progress.
1858Froude Hist. Eng. III. xv. 297 The natural instinct of veneration had ossified into idolatry. 1891Ch. Times 2 Jan. 9/1 It is said in academic circles of a very successful Fellow who rises too rapidly to high place, that he ossifies.
2. trans. To convert into bone; to harden, to make like bone. (Chiefly in pass.)
1721Phil. Trans. Abr. V. 341 heading, The Arteries Ossified. 1800Med. Jrnl. IV. 227 The coronary arteries..were ossified. 1849Murchison Siluria xii. 303 The skeletons of these animals were all well ossified.
b. fig. To harden; to render callous, rigid, unprogressive, or inoperative.
1831Fraser's Mag. III. 7 Their withers are wrung, their feelings are ossified. 1860Farrar Orig. Lang. v. 114 Our phrases, often repeated, ossify the very organs of intelligence. 1877R. H. Hutton Ess. (ed. 2) I. 10 Long-continued doubt..must in the end ossify the higher parts of the mind.
Hence ˈossifying vbl. n. and ppl. a.
1713Cheselden Anat. i. i. (1726) 6 By the continual addition of this ossifying matter, the bones increase. 1741A. Monro Anat. Bones (ed. 3) 32 The ossifying of Bones. 1799Hatchett in Phil. Trans. LXXXIX. 325 The ossifying substance, which is principally phosphate of lime, is dissolved. 1898L. Stephen Stud. of a Biogr. II. iii. 78 His nature had resisted the ossifying process which makes most of us commonplace..in later life. |