How to Use fossilize in a Sentence

fossilize

verb
  • The mud helped to preserve and fossilize the wood.
  • In my mind a few of them are fossilized in their teenage awfulness.
    — Mike Kerrigan, WSJ, 29 Mar. 2019
  • Common species are more likely to be fossilized than rare ones.
    — Asher Elbein, Scientific American, 24 Sep. 2024
  • Although sharks are not composed of bone, these fish can fossilize.
    — Olivia Munson, USA TODAY, 9 Aug. 2022
  • Whale bones can then fossilize over time, leaving behind traces of what life looked like millions of years ago.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 10 June 2026
  • This is because sharks' skeletons are made of cartilage, which tends not to fossilize.
    — Ben Coxworth, New Atlas, 11 Mar. 2025
  • In fact, some specimens have even been found with the remains of crustaceans fossilized in their throats.
    — Sara Novak, Discover Magazine, 27 June 2023
  • Shark skeletons are made of cartilage, which does not fossilize as well as bone — so it is rarely preserved.
    — CBS News, 30 Jan. 2020
  • The beams had become fossilized after being in the water for so long and needed heavy cranes to be moved.
    — Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 14 June 2025
  • Fela’s greatest achievement may be that his music never fossilized.
    — Obi Asika, semafor.com, 6 Feb. 2026
  • The only octopus body parts that do fossilize are their chitinous jaws, which look a bit like parrot beaks.
    — Jacek Krywko, ArsTechnica, 24 Apr. 2026
  • Together, these behaviors open up options in a field that has been fossilized for decades.
    — Marion Blank, Scientific American, 26 Sep. 2023
  • His team’s discovery marks the first time brains from any human or animal have been found fossilized as glass.
    — Washington Post, 23 Jan. 2020
  • Shark bodies are largely made of this firm, white connective substance—which does not fossilize well.
    — Erin Biba, Scientific American, 1 June 2017
  • Shark bodies are largely made of this firm, white connective substance—which does not fossilize well.
    — Erin Biba, Scientific American, 1 June 2017
  • And yet the office is fossilized, like a gift-shop lollipop with a scorpion wedged inside, stuck in the time of pants.
    — Chloe Berger, Fortune, 24 July 2023
  • The skeleton is made of soft cartilage that doesn’t fossilize well, Pimiento said.
    — Maddie Burakoff, ajc, 17 Aug. 2022
  • Those sensory cells, like other soft tissue, rarely fossilize.
    — Lisa Raffensperger, Discover Magazine, 11 Apr. 2013
  • This was not a small, delicate creature unlikely to fossilize.
    — Brian Switek, Scientific American Blog Network, 17 May 2017
  • There will be this explosion of stuff, which will be very hard to destroy and will fossilize really easily.
    — Katie Hunt, CNN Money, 26 Mar. 2025
  • Animals this small do not fossilize well, which is why this stage of the distant evolutionary past is so little known.
    — Nicholas Wade, New York Times, 30 Jan. 2017
  • The study authors believe a family of barn owls once lived in the cave and coughed up the bones of their prey, which eventually fossilized.
    — Taylor Nicioli, CNN Money, 17 Dec. 2025
  • But this flight adaptation makes pterosaur skeletons less likely to fossilize intact, leaving them scarce in the fossil record.
    — Alex Fox, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 Apr. 2020
  • But whatever transpired, sediment covered and preserved enough of the body that the bones fossilized.
    — Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 Nov. 2024
  • Sharks have skeletons made mostly of cartilage, which doesn’t fossilize well, so researchers often rely on teeth.
    — Melissa Cristina Márquez, Forbes.com, 11 June 2025
  • This created a rock replica of the animal’s brain as a specimen fossilized.
    — Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 28 Mar. 2023
  • Soft tissue such as muscle do not typically fossilize, but these were preserved as the mineral pyrite.
    — David Grossman, Popular Mechanics, 22 Feb. 2019
  • That’s because the animals had skeletons made of cartilage, which does not fossilize as easily as bone.
    — Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 3 Oct. 2019
  • Often, that snapshot does not include hatchlings or juveniles, which are smaller and less likely to fossilize.
    — Jason Bittel, National Geographic, 20 May 2019
  • Becoming Noah Lyles always included staying him long enough for his mark on the sport to fossilize.
    — Marcus Thompson Ii, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'fossilize.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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