fossilize

IPA: fˈɑsʌɫaɪz

(transitive) to make into a fossil
(intransitive) to become a fossil
(figurative, by extension, intransitive) To become inflexible or outmoded.
(figurative, by extension, transitive) To make antiquated, rigid, or fixed; to deaden.

Examples of "fossilize" in Sentences

Within several months, the ash will simply blow away into the atmospheric background or fossilize to form new rock.
Though brains don't normally fossilize, we do have a great deal of fossil evidence revealing the long evolutionary history of chordates.
Otherwise, there is a danger that they will simply mark time as language learners, or even – to use a now fairly discredited term – fossilize.
Microbes can flash fossilize and presto, you can have a microfossil that registers as extraterrestrial when it was alive on Earth not that long before.
State politics fossilize; Democrats see little reason to give up the spending they like if enough Republicans won't meet them anywhere close to the middle.
Brains don't normally fossilize, but we know that human brains fit the nested hierarchy, that human brains are comprised of modifications of structures found in related organisms, that craniates follow a long, diversifying path of evolutionary history, and that humans are derived hominids.
Zachriel: Brains don't normally fossilize, but we know that human brains fit the nested hierarchy, that human brains are comprised of modifications of structures found in related organisms, that craniates follow a long, diversifying path of evolutionary history, and that humans are derived hominids.