freeze
Forms
- present (v1)
- freeze
- past (v2)
- froze
- past participle (v3)
- frozen
- present participle
- freezing
- 3rd person singular
- freezes
- Plural
- freezes
Definitions
1.Especially of a liquid, to become solid due to low temperature.
- He got to Dawson before the river froze, and now I suppose I won't hear any more until spring.
2.To drop to a temperature below zero degrees celsius, where water turns to ice.
- It didn't freeze this winter, but last winter was very harsh.
3.To be affected by extreme cold.(informal)
- 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.
4.To lower something's temperature to the point that it freezes or becomes hard.
- It may freeze next week.
1.A period of intensely cold weather.
- 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.
2.A halt of a regular operation.
- Many of our opponents in Congress are advocating a freeze in Federal spending and an increase in taxes.
- 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.
3.The state when either a single computer program, or the whole system ceases to respond to inputs.
4.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.
Frequency
Overall
Uncommon· #2990
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Uncommon
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Word family
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