fossilized
Americanadjective
-
(of the remains of an organism) having organic substances replaced with mineral ones; converted into a fossil.
-
rigidly antiquated.
-
having become the lifeless or disused remains of something; being merely a trace of the past.
Other Word Forms
- nonfossilized adjective
- semi-fossilized adjective
- unfossilized adjective
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This was a fossilized program taking on a divisive, peripatetic local who’d pledged his prior job was going to be his “last job.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 23, 2026
"Examining the growth rings preserved in the fossilized bones allowed us to reconstruct the animals' year-by-year growth histories."
From Science Daily • Mar. 5, 2026
Her fossilized sea urchin, from a beach on the Red Sea, “responds by radiating its own inner joy at being found and loved too,” whispering: “We are two cyclical beings, each with their own story.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Jan. 16, 2026
Some chemical markers were linked to estrogen-related genes, indicating that certain fossilized animals were female.
From Science Daily • Jan. 3, 2026
In September 1832, exploring the gray cliffs and low-lying clay bays near Punta Alta, he discovered an astonishing natural cemetery, with fossilized bones of enormous extinct mammals splayed out before him.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
