petrifying

1. 1.

   paralyzing with terror

   Similaralarming

Questions about petrifying

What does petrifying mean?

petrifying means "paralyzing with terror".

How many syllables are in petrifying?

petrifying has 3 syllables and divides as pe-tri-fying under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is petrifying a common word?

petrifying is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.