Freeze
English Meaning
A frieze.
- To pass from the liquid to the solid state by loss of heat.
- To acquire a surface or coat of ice from cold: The lake froze over in January. Bridges freeze before the adjacent roads.
- To become clogged or jammed because of the formation of ice: The pipes froze in the basement.
- To be at that degree of temperature at which ice forms: It may freeze tonight.
- To be killed or harmed by cold or frost: They almost froze to death. Mulch keeps garden plants from freezing.
- To be or feel uncomfortably cold: Aren't you freezing without a coat?
- To become fixed, stuck, or attached by or as if by frost: The lock froze up with rust.
- To stop functioning properly, usually temporarily: My computer screen froze when I opened the infected program.
- To become motionless or immobile, as from surprise or attentiveness: I heard a sound and froze in my tracks.
- To become unable to act or speak, as from fear: froze in front of the audience.
- To become rigid and inflexible; solidify: an opinion that froze into dogma.
- To convert into ice.
- To cause ice to form upon.
- To cause to congeal or stiffen from extreme cold: winter cold that froze the ground.
- To preserve (foods, for example) by subjecting to freezing temperatures.
- To damage, kill, or make inoperative by cold or by the formation of ice.
- To make very cold; chill.
- To immobilize, as with fear or shock.
- To chill with an icy or formal manner: froze me with one look.
- To stop the motion or progress of: The negotiations were frozen by the refusal of either side to compromise.
- To fix (prices or wages, for example) at a given or current level.
- To prohibit further manufacture or use of.
- To prevent or restrict the exchange, withdrawal, liquidation, or granting of by governmental action: freeze investment loans during a depression; froze foreign assets held by U.S. banks.
- To capture or preserve a likeness of, as on film.
- To photograph (a subject) in mid-action so as to produce a still image.
- To stop (a moving film) at a particular image.
- To anesthetize by chilling.
- Sports To keep possession of (a ball or puck) so as to deny an opponent the opportunity to score.
- The act of freezing.
- The state of being frozen.
- A spell of cold weather; a frost.
- A restriction that forbids a quantity from rising above a given or current level: a freeze on city jobs; a proposed freeze on the production of nuclear weapons.
- freeze out To shut out or exclude, as by cold or unfriendly treatment: The others tried to freeze me out of the conversation.
- freeze (someone's) blood To affect with terror or dread; horrify: a scream that froze my blood.