freeze

freeze1 [ friz ] (past tense froze [ frouz ] ; past participle frozen [ `frouzn ] ) verb **

▸ 1 when liquid turns solid

▸ 2 preserve by making cold

▸ 3 feel extremely cold

▸ 4 weather: reach 0°C

▸ 5 stop moving/working

▸ 6 stop officially

▸ 7 stop someone's money

▸ + PHRASES

1. ) intransitive or transitive if water freezes or something freezes it, it gets very cold and changes into ice:

The lake freezes in winter.

frozen solid (=completely hard): The water in the cat's bowl was frozen solid.

─ opposite MELT

a ) if a liquid freezes or something freezes it, it becomes solid because it has reached a low temperature:

Liquid nitrogen freezes at minus 209 degrees Celsius.

b ) if a substance freezes or something freezes it, it becomes very cold and hard:

The soil was frozen.

─ opposite THAW

c ) if a pipe freezes or the weather freezes it, the water inside it becomes ice

d ) if something such as a lock or a machine freezes or something freezes it, it gets stuck and cannot move:

The blanket had frozen to the windscreen.

2. ) transitive to preserve food or drink by making it extremely cold in a FREEZER:

I'll freeze the other pack of sausages.

a ) intransitive if food freezes, it is preserved in this way:

Strawberries don't freeze very well.

b ) transitive if you freeze a human body or a part of the body, you preserve it by making it extremely cold:

The embryos are frozen at minus 20 degrees and stored.

3. ) intransitive to feel extremely cold:

You'll freeze if you go out in that thin coat.

freeze to death (=die from being very cold): The lambs looked as if they had frozen to death in the snow.

4. ) intransitive if it freezes, the temperature of the air goes down to 0 degrees Celsius or below

5. ) intransitive to stop moving and keep completely still:

Freeze! Don't move a muscle!

Kate froze in horror when she saw all the blood.

frozen to the spot (=unable to move because you are frightened or shocked): I stood frozen to the spot, unable to believe my eyes.

a ) intransitive to stop moving or making progress:

Their wine glasses frozen in mid-air, they all stared at me.

It seemed as though time had frozen.

b ) intransitive or transitive COMPUTING if a computer screen freezes or something freezes it, the images on it become completely still and you cannot move them because there is something wrong with the computer

c ) transitive to stop a video or film from moving forward, especially so you can look closely at one particular picture

6. ) transitive to say officially that the rate or level of something must stay the same and not increase:

Wages were frozen until the end of December.

We are freezing prices at 2001 levels.

7. ) transitive to legally stop a supply of money from being available to someone:

The courts have frozen her bank account.

freeze someone's assets (=stop someone selling their property to make money): The company's assets could be frozen by the banks.

,freeze `out phrasal verb transitive INFORMAL

to prevent someone from taking part in something:

He was frozen out of official life.

,freeze `over phrasal verb intransitive

to become covered with a layer of ice

,freeze `up phrasal verb intransitive INFORMAL

1. ) if something freezes up it becomes so cold that it does not work or cannot move:

Our plumbing froze up last winter.

2. ) to be unable to think of anything to say, especially because you are nervous

freeze

freeze 2 [ friz ] noun *

1. ) count an official decision to prevent any increase in the number, level, or rate of something:

a pay/wage/price freeze

freeze on: There has been a freeze on the number of police officers.

2. ) singular a drop in temperature to 0 degrees Celsius or below:

A freeze is expected tonight.

a ) a period of time when the weather is extremely cold:

the big freeze of 1941