Frozen

ppl. a. Forms: see the verb. [pa. pple. of FREEZE v.]

  1.  Congealed by extreme cold; subjected or exposed to extreme cold.

a. 1340.  Hampole, Psalter, cxxv. 5. Þe south blawand frosyn strandis lesis & rennys.

a. 1400–50.  Alexander, 3063. Sir Dary … fande it [the burne] frosyn hym byfore.

1555.  Eden, Decades, Contents. The nauigation by the frosen sea.

1667.  Milton, P. L., II. 587. Beyond this flood a frozen Continent Lies dark and wilde.

1698.  J. Fryer, A New Account of East-India and Persia, 3. In this short space we have almost out-ran the Northern Winter’s Blasts, and begin to be sensible of a more vigorous Clime, whose temperate Warmth adds Spirits to our frozen Limbs.

1833.  N. Arnott, Physics (ed. 5), II. I. 90. A piece of frozen mercury … thrown into a little water at 32°.

1872.  Yeats, Techn. Hist. Comm., 224. In Canada, Hudson’s Bay Territory, and other sub-arctic countries, frozen meat is a common article of commerce.

1893.  Times (weekly ed.), 2 Feb., 89/3. Allowance must be made in the North-West [of Canada] for a proportion of frozen wheat.

  b.  fig. and of immaterial things. Of facts, truth (U.S.) = HARD, SOLID.

1576.  A. Fleming, A Panoplie of Epistles, 367. Is that olde acquaintaunce which did knit vs twain in an vnitie, so frosen and consumed in you, that you can scarse vouchsafe a frendly greeting?

1641.  Milton, Ch. Govt., I. vi. (1851), 125. But farre worse then any frozen captivity is the bondage of Prelates.

1697.  Dryden, Virg. Pastorals, VIII. 99.

1760.  T. Hutchinson, Hist. Mass., 146. They hoped to see the then contemned ordinances of God highly prized; the gospel, then dark, break forth as the sun; christian charity, then frozen, wax warm; jealousy of arbitrary government banished; strife and contention abated; and all business in church and state, which for many years had gone backward, successfully thriving, &c.

1814.  Byron, The Corsair, I. xv. The tender blue of that large loving eye Grew frozen with its gaze on vacancy.

1858.  Hawthorne, Fr. & It. Jrnls., II. 62. This frozen sisterhood of the allegoric family.

1867.  M. Arnold, Sonn., West London. The rich she had let pass with frozen stare.

1884.  Boston (Mass.) Herald, 25 Sept. ‘Frozen Facts’ is a purely American expression. Ibid., 22 Oct., 2/2. We were simply stating the frozen truth.

  2.  Frozen-out: cut off or excluded by frost. Frozen-up: closed or stopped by frost.

1885.  G. Allen, Babylon, iii. On the stray chance of catching a frozen-out racoon.

1890.  Daily News, 31 Dec., 3/2. ‘All-froze-out poor working men who’ve got no work to do-o-o.’… The carrying of water to frozen-up householders has become almost a … recognised industry. In many of the suburbs there has been … a mellifluous sing-song telling of frozen-up pipes. Ibid. (1893), 23 Feb., 7/4. The frozen-up German seed is still delayed.

  3.  Comb., as frozen-hearted adj.

1654.  trans. Scudery’s Curia Politiæ, 26. They are not men, but cold statues, and such as the frozen hearted Venetians.

  Hence Frozenly adv., in a frozen manner; with a cold look or action; (U.S.) stubbornly; Frozenness, frozen condition.

1653.  Gauden, Hieraspistes, 486. For however people have now and then a warm fit of giving … they soon returne to that frozenness, which is hardly dissolved by any mans warmest breathings.

1725.  Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Towering, The Signs of which are, they look frozenly on their Sides.

1851.  D. Jerrold, St. Giles, xv. 151. He, therefore, looked frozenly at the prisoner, rebuking him by that look into a proper sense of his infamy, and at the same time asserting his own forensic consequence.

1864.  Lowell, Fireside Trav., 150. Gradually I was able to make things out a little, and began to hack frozenly at a log which I groped out.