petrific

“Sir!” cried Mr Delvile, with a look meant to be nothing less than petrific.

Cecilia 2008

Such denial thus becomes another form of self-mortification as Theotormon "wear [s] the threshold hard," figuratively clothing himself in a penitential garment of stonea version of the ascetic's hairshirtwhose petrific, impenetrable surface signifies Theotormon's extreme self-enclosure, his unwillingness to entertain any open encounter with earthly otherness.

Gender, Environment, and Imperialism in William Blake's _Visions of the Daughters of Albion_ 2001

Color was to them a rapture and one of the great pursuits of their lives; it was music visible, and they cultivated it as such, -- not by rule and measure, by scales and opposites, through theories and canons, with petrific chill of intellect or entangling subtilty of analysis.

The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 74, December, 1863 Various

The sultry and dissolving fluid shall bake into a solid, the petrific fluid shall melt into a liquid.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 Various

Had certain melodramatic features been as cautiously banished from Mr O'Connell's parades as latterly they were affectedly sought, it is certain that, to this hour, he and his pretended myriads would have been untouched by the petrific mace of the policeman.

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 342, April, 1844 Various

But Mr. Bailly will sooner thaw the eternal ice of his Atlantic regions, than restore the central heat to Paris, whilst it remains 'smitten with the cold, dry, petrific mace' of a false and unfeeling philosophy.

Paras. 375-407 1909

But it must be honestly added, that the result depends upon the spirit in which such study is carried on; for if we are too fond of finality, too eager to believe that we have already attained a greater precision and comprehension than are in fact attainable, nothing can be more petrific than 'science,' and our last state may be worse than the first.

Logic Deductive and Inductive Carveth Read 1889

At times March actually lifted a shawl from his knees, feeling sure that the stranger was English and that he might make so bold with him; then at some glacial glint in the young man's eye, or at some petrific expression of his delicate face, he felt that he was a Bostonian, and lost courage and let the shawl sink again.

Complete March Family Trilogy William Dean Howells 1878

At times March actually lifted a shawl from his knees, feeling sure that the stranger was English and that he might make so bold with him; then at some glacial glint in the young man's eye, or at some petrific expression of his delicate face, he felt that he was a Bostonian, and lost courage and let the shawl sink again.

Their Silver Wedding Journey — Volume 3 William Dean Howells 1878

At times March actually lifted a shawl from his knees, feeling sure that the stranger was English and that he might make so bold with him; then at some glacial glint in the young man's eye, or at some petrific expression of his delicate face, he felt that he was a Bostonian, and lost courage and let the shawl sink again.

Their Silver Wedding Journey — Complete William Dean Howells 1878