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Ossified: meaning, example and synonyms

Ossifiedadj. Rigid and resistant to change, as if turned to bone.

Flashcard for Ossified (adjective): rigid and resistant to change, as if turned to bone. Example: The reformers argued that the guild's ossified rules, unchanged for a century, kept talented newcomers from ever earning a license. Synonyms: rigid, fossilized, inflexible, hidebound. Antonyms: flexible, adaptable, progressive, dynamic. Memory tip: Latin os = bone: ossified ideas have hardened like bone. Illustration: a dusty old council chamber where elderly men in stiff robes sit motionless around a table piled with heavy old ledgers and cobwebs.

Example

The reformers argued that the guild's ossified rules, unchanged for a century, kept talented newcomers from ever earning a license.

Part of speech
adjective
Synonyms
rigid, fossilized, inflexible, hidebound
Antonyms
flexible, adaptable, progressive, dynamic
Memory tip
Latin os = bone: ossified ideas have hardened like bone.

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Check yourself: Ossified in context

Pick the word that best completes each text.

Question 1

Younger faculty complained that the department had become ______, clinging to a curriculum written forty years earlier and dismissing every proposed change.

Question 2

Once a lively form of popular theater, the genre had grown ______ by the eighteenth century, its plots and gestures fixed by rules no performer dared break.

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