How to Use petrifying in a Sentence
petrifying
adjective-
And so, that was petrifying to me.
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Ben Smith,
semafor.com,
3 Apr. 2026
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Its many nail-biting scenes are petrifying, to say the least.
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Michael Lee Simpson,
Entertainment Weekly,
29 Oct. 2025
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In so many of his films, Spielberg tries to control and redefine something that is, on some level, unknowable and petrifying.
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Bilge Ebiri,
Vulture,
9 June 2026
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In so many of his films, Spielberg tries to control and redefine something that is, on some level, unknowable and petrifying.
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Abid Rahman,
HollywoodReporter,
10 June 2026
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Besides, the woman is petrifying!
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Rafaela Bassili,
Vulture,
14 Apr. 2026
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The filmmaker leans pop-comic rather than petrifying in his final draft, opting for earnestness that smothers atmospheric dread.
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Alison Foreman,
IndieWire,
6 Feb. 2026
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The childishness of his expressions infantilized a genuinely vicious regime, painting it as more peevish than petrifying.
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Fintan O’Toole,
The New York Review of Books,
9 Apr. 2026
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Her earliest moments in the show have shades of a western—No Country for Old Men with a side of devout Trump supporters, sniffer dogs, petrifying cronies, and balloons stuffed with fentanyl and swallowed with lube.
—
Radhika Seth,
Vogue,
9 Apr. 2026
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'petrifying.' 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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