freeze up

See also: freeze-up

English

Verb

freeze up (third-person singular simple present freezes up, present participle freezing up, simple past froze up, past participle frozen up)

1. To be adversely affected by ice, and not function.
   • 1962 March, “Lessons of the Freeze-up”, in Modern Railways, page 146:

     But these precautions lost some of their merit when the L.T. trains themselves became frozen up at depots overnight.

2. (ambitransitive) (of machines and software) To come or bring to a sudden halt, stop working (functioning).

   Since the last update, the program freezes up after a few minutes of use.

3. (ambitransitive) (of people and other animals) To stop or be stopped due to attentiveness, fear, surprise, etc.

   Despite all of the rehearsals, as soon as I got on stage I froze up.

4. (intransitive) To become cold and formal in demeanour.

Derived terms

• freeze-up (noun)

Translations

adversely affected by ice

•  Chinese:

   Mandarin: 凍結 / 冻结 (zh) (dòngjié)

•  Finnish: jäätyä (fi)
•  French: please add this translation if you can

(of machines and software) come to a sudden halt

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 當機 / 当机 (zh) (dàngjī)

• Esperanto: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: hyytyä (fi)
• French: se figer (fr)
• German: einfrieren (de)
• Japanese: please add this translation if you can
• Portuguese: travar (pt), congelar (pt)
• Russian: ви́снуть (ru) impf (vísnutʹ), зави́снуть (ru) pf (zavísnutʹ)
• Spanish: please add this translation if you can

(of people and other animals) stop or be stopped

•  Chinese:

   Mandarin: 僵住 (jiāngzhù)

•  Finnish: jähmettyä (fi)
•  French: please add this translation if you can

become cold and formal in demeanour

•  Chinese:

   Mandarin: 冷漠 (zh) (lěngmò)

•  Finnish: viiletä
•  French: please add this translation if you can