frozen

1. 1
   adjective

   Hardened or solidified by extreme cold; turned into ice or kept in an icy state.

   The ground stayed frozen well into early spring.

   She stored the frozen berries until she had enough for jam.

   Similaricy, solid, hard

   Oppositemelted

   Note

   The participle turned adjective. Middle English had frozen alongside an older froren, and both were past participles of fresen, "to freeze". The -n ending still marks the word as a participle: freeze plus -n. It sits easily before a noun, as in frozen pizza, and just as easily after a verb, as in a mammoth that has been frozen for ten thousand years.

2. 2
   adjective

   Held completely still and unable to move, often from fear, shock, or sudden tension.

   The hikers stayed frozen as the bear wandered past their camp.

   He sat frozen at his desk, too stunned to react to the announcement.

   Similarmotionless, still, rigid, petrified, paralyzed

3. 3
   adjective

   Held under a restriction that prevents any transactions, transfers, or withdrawals.

   The court ordered the suspect's assets frozen during the trial.

   His savings remained frozen while the bank investigated the dispute.

   Similarblocked

4. 4
   verb

   Past participle of freeze.

   The water has frozen in the outdoor pipes again.

   By morning the whole pond had frozen over.

   Note

   A verb form whose helper depends on which freeze is meant. Intransitive uses build the perfect with have: the pond has frozen, the screen has frozen. Transitive uses build the passive with be: the mammoth was frozen shortly after death. The -n ending is the old participle marker behind the ice adjective, and the adjective shares this spelling.

5. 5
   adjective

   Preserving an older, now-obsolete grammatical structure that survives only within a particular word or fixed phrase.

   Like a fly trapped in amber, keeping a shape from long ago.

   The subjunctive survives in frozen expressions such as "be that as it may."

   Phrases like "with child" preserve a frozen syntax that the living language has otherwise lost.

   Similarfixed, fossilized

   Note

   A linguist's term for grammar that has stopped working everywhere except in one spot. Dice is one such case: a frozen plural, a form the language no longer builds but still uses. Fossilized names the same idea. The word pairs naturally with form, plural, expression and syntax. A frozen form is kept rather than generated, so learners memorize it instead of deriving it from a rule.

Showing meanings only. Show all 5