freeze
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: ball-games
business
computing
curling
engineering
finance
games
hobbies
ice-hockey
lifestyle
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
skating
software
sports
Etymology: From Middle English fresen, from Old English frēosan (“to freeze”), from Proto-West Germanic *freusan, from Proto-Germanic *freusaną (“to freeze”), from Proto-Indo-European *prews- (“to freeze; frost”).
Cognates
Cognate with North Frisian friis, friise, früüs (“to freeze”), Saterland Frisian fjoose, frjoze (“to freeze”), West Frisian frieze (“to freeze”), Central Franconian freese (“to freeze”), Cimbrian briizan, vriizan (“to be cold”), Dutch vriezen (“to freeze”), Low German freren, fresen (“to freeze”), Luxembourgish fréieren (“to freeze”), German frieren (“to freeze”), Yiddish פֿרירן (frirn, “freeze”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål fryse (“to freeze”), Icelandic frjósa (“to freeze”), Norwegian Nynorsk frysa, fryse (“to freeze”), Swedish frysa (“to freeze”); also Cornish rew (“frost, ice”), Irish reo (“frost”), reoigh (“to freeze”), Manx rio (“frost, ice”), Scottish Gaelic reòdh, reòth (“freeze”), Welsh rhew (“frost, ice”), Latin pruīna (“hoarfrost, rime”), Albanian prush (“embers”), Lithuanian prausti (“to give showers of rain”), Czech prskat (“to splutter, sputter”), Macedonian прска (prska, “to spray, sprinkle”), Polish pryskać, prysnąć (“to spray, sprinkle”), Russian пры́скать (prýskatʹ), пры́снуть (prýsnutʹ, “to spray, sprinkle”), Serbo-Croatian прскати, prskati (“to spray, sprinkle”), Sanskrit प्रुष्णोति (pruṣṇoti, “to moisten, shower, sprinkle, wet”), प्रुष्वा (pruṣvā, “hoarfrost, ice, rime”), Saraiki پسݨ (pussaṇ, “to become wet”).
Inflected forms:
form: freezes
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: freezing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: froze
pos: verb
tags: past
form: frore
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
form: frozen
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: froze
pos: verb
tags: colloquial
participle
past
form: frore
pos: verb
tags: archaic
participle
past
form: freezes
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Especially of a liquid, to become solid due to low temperature.
pos: verb
tags: copulative
intransitive
examples: The lake froze solid.
1855, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Song of Hiawatha, Book XX: The Famine,
Ever thicker, thicker, thicker / Froze the ice on lake and river,
He got to Dawson before the river froze, and now I suppose I won't hear any more until spring.
1915, Eleanor Stackhouse Atkinson, The How and Why Library: Wonders, Section II: Water,
Running water does not freeze as easily as still water.
gloss: To lower something's temperature to the point that it freezes or becomes hard.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Don't freeze meat twice.
1888, Elias Lönnrot, John Martin Crawford (translator, from German), The Kalevala, Rune XXX: The Frost-fiend,
Freeze the wizard in his vessel, / Freeze to ice the wicked Ahti, ...
gloss: To drop to a temperature below zero degrees celsius, where water turns to ice.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: It didn't freeze this winter, but last winter was very harsh.
gloss: To be affected by extreme cold.
pos: verb
tags: informal
intransitive
examples: It's freezing in here!
Don't go outside wearing just a t-shirt; you'll freeze!
Far unfit to bear the bitter cold, / I can scarcely move or draw my breath? / Let me, let me freeze again to death.
gloss: Of a machine or system, to come to a sudden halt, to stop working (functioning).
pos: verb
tags: idiomatic
intransitive
examples: Since the last update, the program freezes after a few minutes of use.
gloss: Of a person or other animal, to stop (become motionless) or be stopped due to attentiveness, fear, surprise, etc.
pos: verb
tags: idiomatic
intransitive
examples: Despite all of the rehearsals, I froze as soon as I got on stage.
As Tarzan rose upon the body of his kill to scream forth his hideous victory cry into the face of the moon the wind carried to his nostrils something which froze him to statuesque immobility and silence.
They froze on their knees, their faces turned upward with a ghastly blue hue in the sudden glare of a weird light that burst blindingly up near the lofty roof and then burned with a throbbing glow.
gloss: To cause someone to become motionless.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Dr Constantine sniggered and Mrs Hubbard immediately froze him with a glance.
gloss: To lose or cause to lose warmth of feeling; to shut out; to ostracize.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
examples: Over time, he froze towards her, and ceased to react to her friendly advances.
The other side to this sunny gladness of natural love is his pity for their sufferings when their own mother's heart seems to freeze towards them.
His friends begin to freeze towards him, the pillars of society cut him publicly, his clients cool off, big business deals no longer come his way, he is increasingly conscious of social ostracism and the puzzled misgivings of his wife.
If you cheat them, they don't say anything but after that they freeze towards you.
gloss: To cause loss of animation or life in, from lack of heat; to give the sensation of cold to; to chill.
pos: verb
examples: A faint, cold fear runs through my veins, / That almost freezes up the heat of life.
gloss: To prevent the movement or liquidation of a person's financial assets
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The court froze the criminal's bank account.
gloss: Of prices, spending etc., to keep at the same level, without any increase.
pos: verb
examples: The headline promise in the Liberal Democrat manifesto is to freeze rail fares for commuters and season ticket holders for the duration of a Parliament.
gloss: To prevent from showing any visible change.
pos: verb
tags: ambitransitive
examples: Pressing the pause button will freeze the video playback.
Playback will freeze if you pause the video.
gloss: To trap (the puck) so that it cannot be played.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: A period of intensely cold weather.
pos: noun
examples: In order to work properly, the cotton stripper required that the plant be brown and brittle, as happened after a freeze, so that the cotton bolls could snap off easily.
gloss: A halt of a regular operation.
pos: noun
examples: Without a freeze it might be possible to proceed with the production and deployment of such destabilizing systems as the MX, Trident II, cruise missiles and SS-18s, -19s and -20s.
1983 October 3, Ted Kennedy, speech, Truth and Tolerance in America,
Critics may oppose the nuclear freeze for what they regard as moral reasons.
Many of our opponents in Congress are advocating a freeze in Federal spending and an increase in taxes.
gloss: The state when either a single computer program, or the whole system ceases to respond to inputs.
pos: noun
gloss: A precise draw weight shot where a delivered stone comes to a stand-still against a stationary stone, making it nearly impossible to knock out.
pos: noun
examples: The reason I said the guard wasn't the toughest shot in curling is because, in my book, that's a shot called the freeze. A stone thrown as a freeze comes perfectly to rest directly in front of another stone, without moving it (see Figure 10-5).
gloss: A block on pay rises or on the hiring of new employees etc.
pos: noun
examples: a hiring freeze;  a pay freeze
"We need a different understanding of revenues and public expenditure. The 15-year freeze on fuel duty and lack of tax on aviation fuel are effectively a huge subsidy to those forms of travel, but they are not described as subsidy because they are foregone revenue. Yet if you invest to hold rail fares, it's seen as subsidy."
Related words: frore
frorn
frory
frost
frosty
Derived words: adfreeze
antifreeze
befreeze
brain freeze
cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey
cryofreeze
cryo-freeze
deep-freeze
deep freeze
defreeze
enfreeze
flash-freeze
freezable
freeze-ahead
freeze baby
freeze brand
freeze chest
freeze distillation
freeze-dried
freeze-dry
freeze-drying
freeze-frame
freeze frame
freeze on to
freeze onto
freeze-out
freezeout
freeze out
freeze over
freeze peach
freeze pop
freezeproof
freezer
freeze solid
freeze-thaw
freeze to
freeze-up
freeze up
freeze valve
freezie
freezing
freezing point
freezoree
freezy
nonfreeze
pay freeze
postfreeze
prefreeze
quick-freeze
refreeze
Seattle Freeze
snap freeze
until the cows freeze over
hard freeze
freeze tag
rent freeze
Translations: