fossilization
noun
fossilization is a noun meaning “The process of converting, or of being converted, into a fossil” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-S-S-I-L-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N, and it appears about once in every 18 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of fossilization is fossilizations.
What does fossilization mean?
noun
- 1
The process of converting, or of being converted, into a fossil.
- 2
The process of becoming fixed, unchanging, and out of date.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of fossilization
- fossilizations plural
- fossilisation
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is fossilization?
Fossilization appears about once in every 18 million words in written English, the 128,787th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Fossilization in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the process of conversion into a fossil:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | fossilisation |
| German | Fossilisierung |
| Spanish | fosilización |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does fossilization come from?
From fossil + -ization or fossilize + -ation.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).