v. [ad. F. lapidifier, ad. med.L. lapidificāre, f. lapid-, lapis stone: see -FY.] † a. intr. To become stone. b. trans. To make or turn into stone.
1657. Tomlinson, Renou’s Disp., 422. Where this Chrystalline humour … lapidifies.
1816. W. Smith, Strata Ident., 31. The Fuller’s Earth Rock … in many places is so soft and imperfectly lapidified as scarcely to deserve the name of stone.
1860. Macm. Mag., I. 410. Layers of coloured clayey sand, in the lowest parts almost lapidified.
1874. Lyell, Elem. Geol., iv. 45. Yet when the whole is ‘lapidified’ it may not form one homogeneous mass.
Hence Lapidified ppl. a.; Lapidifying vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1669. W. Simpson, Hydrol. Chym., 266. From which lapidifying juyce [etc.].
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 25. Porous bodies … might be converted into stone, as being permeable to what he [Mattioli] termed the ‘lapidifying juice.’ Ibid. (1832), II. 257. Lapidified plants.
1832. De la Beche, Geol. Man. (ed. 2), 145. A … struggle between the destructive power of the Nera, and the lapidifying power of the Velino.
1835. Kirby, Hab. & Inst. Anim., I. viii. 260. They [pearls] are produced by the extravasation of a lapidifying fluid.
