ISEE/SSAT Vocabulary BuilderWordsOossify
ISEE/SSAThard
ossify
Meaning: to harden or become rigid and resistant to change
ossify in a sentence
How ossify is used in real sentences:
Without regular review, useful traditions can ossify into burdensome rules.
Over time, the once flexible organization ossified into a rigid bureaucracy.
“Marlow warned that emergency rules can ossify when agencies stop asking whether yesterday's restrictions still fit today's landscape.”
— from the passage The Juniper Recovery
Synonyms for ossify
Other words for ossify — harden, rigidify and calcify — carry the same meaning.
- harden
- rigidify
- calcify
Antonyms of ossify
Words that mean the opposite of ossify:
- soften
- loosen
- adapt
Where it comes from
From Latin os, meaning 'bone,' and facere, meaning 'to make.'
Memory hook
OSS means bone: to ossify is to become bone-hard.