freeze
pronunciation
How to pronounce freeze in British English:
UK [friːz]
How to pronounce freeze in American English:
US [friːz]
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- Noun:
- the withdrawal of heat to change something from a liquid to a solid
- weather cold enough to cause freezing
- an interruption or temporary suspension of progress or movement
- fixing (of prices or wages etc) at a particular level
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- Verb:
- change to ice
- stop moving or become immobilized
- be cold
- cause to freeze
- stop a process or a habit by imposing a freeze on it
- be very cold, below the freezing point
- change from a liquid to a solid when cold
- prohibit the conversion or use of (assets)
- anesthetize by cold
- suddenly behave coldly and formally
Word Origin
- freeze
- freeze: [OE] Freeze is an ancient word, which traces its history back to Indo-European *preus- (source also of Latin pruīna ‘hoarfrost’). Its Germanic descendant was *freusan, from which come German frieren, Dutch vriezen, Swedish frysa, and English freeze. The noun frost [OE] was formed in the prehistoric Germanic period from a weakly stressed variant of the base of *freusan plus the suffix -t.=> frost
- freeze (v.)
- alteration of freese, friese, from Middle English fresen, from Old English freosan (intransitive) "turn to ice" (class II strong verb; past tense freas, past participle froren), from Proto-Germanic *freusan "to freeze" (cognates: Dutch vriezen, Old Norse frjosa, Old High German friosan, German frieren "to freeze," and related to Gothic frius "frost"), from Proto-Germanic *freus-, equivalent to PIE root *preus- "to freeze," also "to burn" (cognates: Sanskrit prusva, Latin pruina "hoarfrost," Welsh rhew "frost," Sanskrit prustah "burnt," Albanian prus "burning coals," Latin pruna "a live coal"). Of weather, "be cold enough to freeze," 13c. Meaning "perish from cold" is c. 1300. Transitive sense "harden into ice, congeal as if by frost" first recorded late 14c.; figurative sense late 14c., "make hard or unfeeling." Intransitive meaning "become rigid or motionless" attested by 1720. Sense of "fix at a certain level" is from 1933; of assets, "make non-transactable," from 1922. Freeze frame is from 1960, originally "a briefly Frozen Shot after the Jingle to allow ample time for Change over at the end of a T.V. 'Commercial.' " ["ABC of Film & TV," 1960].
- freeze (n.)
- "freezing conditions," c. 1400, from freeze (v.).
Synonym
Example
- 1. A bigger worry is a freeze in euro funding .
- 2. Ice rage : your car doors freeze shut in cold weather .
- 3. Is it possible to freeze farts ?
- 4. Snow crystals form when tiny supercooled cloud droplets freeze .
- 5. Have an adult help you scoop out a big scoop of watermelon and freeze it .