freeze

Formsfreezes, freezing, froze, frozen

Pluralfreezes

1. 1
   verbintransitive

   To become solid as a result of low temperature, especially in the case of a liquid.

   Mountain streams freeze solid during the coldest months.

   The lake froze early this year, well before December.

   Similarsolidify

   Oppositedefrost, thaw, liquify

   Note

   The physical sense is the oldest. It comes from Old English frēosan, from a Germanic root meaning 'to frost, freeze.' The standard forms are froze for the past and frozen for the past participle. Colloquial speech sometimes uses froze for both (it had froze overnight), but careful writing avoids it. An older past form, frore, is now archaic. With solid it makes a near-fixed pair: a lake freezes solid.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To lower the temperature of something until it turns solid or becomes hard.

   Fishermen freeze their catch immediately to keep it fresh.

   The factory froze the harvested vegetables within hours of picking.

   Oppositethaw, defrost

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To become motionless all at once out of fear, surprise, or intense attention.

   Rabbits freeze at the first hint of a hawk overhead.

   She froze mid-sentence when the door slammed behind her.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   Of a machine or software, to come to a sudden halt and stop functioning.

   Cheap phones often freeze under heavy multitasking.

   The application froze midway through saving the file.

   Similarhang, seize

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To cause someone to become unable to move.

   A single sharp command can freeze the whole squad.

   Sheer terror froze her where she stood.

   Similarhalt, immobilize

   Note

   Here something else does the stopping, and very often it is a look. In Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1934), Mrs Hubbard freezes a sniggering doctor with a glance. Freeze someone with a glance, look or stare is the natural home of this sense, and it stops speech as much as movement. When people stop of their own accord, English uses the intransitive reflex instead.

6. 6
   verbcolloquialintransitive

   To feel painfully or extremely cold.

   Spectators freeze in the open stands during late-season games.

   They froze all night in the unheated cabin.

7. 7
   verbintransitive

   To drop to a temperature below zero degrees Celsius, the point at which water turns to ice.

   Forecasters warn it will freeze across the valley by morning.

   It froze hard last night, glazing the roads with ice.

   Oppositethaw

   Note

   Weather talk takes an empty subject: it freezes the way it rains or snows, with nothing in particular doing the freezing. A sentence like it didn't freeze this winter means the temperature never fell below the point where water turns to ice. It does not mean that some named thing failed to turn solid.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A spell of intensely cold weather.

   The deep freeze gripped the region for nearly two weeks.

   Citrus growers dread an unexpected freeze in early spring.

   Similarfrost

   Oppositethaw

9. 9
   nouncountable

   A halt to an activity or operation that normally continues.

   Management announced a freeze on overtime payments.

   The board defended its freeze order before the unions.

   Similarmoratorium, halt, suspension

   Note

   The noun was at the center of the arms debates of the early 1980s. Then nuclear freeze meant halting the production and deployment of new weapons, and Ted Kennedy defended it in a 1983 speech. The same years show the wider use: in a 1985 radio address, Ronald Reagan speaks of opponents who want a freeze in Federal spending.

10. 10
    verbtransitive

    To hold prices, wages, or spending at a fixed level, preventing any increase.

    Lawmakers voted to freeze tuition for the coming year.

    The council froze property taxes to ease the burden on residents.

    Similarcap, fix

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