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# ossified

«ossified» in Mova's school dictionary: **turned into bone: soft cartilage that has hardened into…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

adjective (ossified); also the past form of the verb ossify (ossify, ossifies, ossified, ossifying)

### meaning for a pupil

1) (science) Ossified means turned into bone: soft cartilage that has hardened into bone, as happens in a growing child's skeleton. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/O/ossified/#m1)

2) (formal) Ossified describes ideas, rules or groups that have become fixed, stiff and unable to change, like old dry bones. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/O/ossified/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In science lessons about the human body, a baby's skeleton is partly soft cartilage that slowly becomes ossified as the child grows. In history and argument it describes old-fashioned systems that never change: «an ossified government». Phrases: became ossified, ossified ideas, ossified rules.

### examples

- A baby's skull is not fully ossified, so it has soft spots. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/O/ossified/#x1)
- As children grow, cartilage in the bones becomes ossified. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/O/ossified/#x2)
- The old club had ossified rules that nobody dared to change. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/O/ossified/#x3)
- The teacher said the empire's government had become ossified and slow. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/O/ossified/#x4)
- The X-ray showed which bones had ossified. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/O/ossified/#x5)
- Some ideas grow ossified if nobody questions them. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/O/ossified/#x6)

### note

From Latin «os» = bone. Verb ossify: ossifies, ossified (y changes to i). Noun: ossification. The second sense is figurative and formal. Do not confuse with «fossilised», which means preserved in rock; but both can be used for ideas that are stuck in the past.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «ossified» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/O/ossified/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.