fossilize

1. (transitive) to make into a fossilExamples: "Most of the booths had been scooped clean by the scalpel-sharp corner of the glacier in the crash. Three remained. Two of them were punctured and, inside, the once-human occupants had been fossilized into the walls by centuries upon centuries of patient ice."transitive

2. (intransitive) to become a fossilSynonyms: fossilate, fossilifyintransitive

3. (figurative, by extension, intransitive) To become inflexible or outmoded.Examples: "I was getting fossilised myself, but of late my stock of ideas has been very much enlarged."broadlyfigurativelyintransitive

4. (figurative, by extension, transitive) To make antiquated, rigid, or fixed; to deaden.Examples: "Ten layers of birthdays on a woman's head / Are apt to fossilize her girlish mirth."; "I'll meet you again Blanketed in soil Fossilized in photographs"broadlyfigurativelytransitive