immobilize

present singular third person immobilizes · participle present immobilizing · participle past immobilized · past immobilized · alternative immobilise

1. transitiveTo render motionless; to stop moving or stop from moving.

   It is best to immobilize the injury until a doctor can examine it.

   4 more examples

   […]two Russian armies would advance into East Prussia, one westward from the Niemen, the other northward from the Narew, with the object of encircling and immobilizing all enemy forces there.

   1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 70

   Zinc oxide is biosafe and, therefore, there are no toxic effects for biomedical applications that immobilize and modify biomolecules (Kumar and Shen, 2008).

   2011, Sam Zhang, Biological and Biomedical Coatings Handbook: Applications, page 343

   This is how Alzheimer's transforms encyclopedians into vegetables, how Parkinson's immobilizes triatheletes.

   2012, Rob Benvie, Maintenance

   Fully autonomous vehicles have raised safety concerns. California enacted a law this year that will, among other things, require manufacturers to continuously monitor every autonomous vehicle on the road and designate a remote human operator to immobilize a vehicle if necessary.

   2024 December 25, Elaine S. Povich, “Self-driving cars aren’t here yet, but states are getting the rules ready”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)

   Synonyms: freeze

2. transitiveTo render incapable of action.

   It's clear from these [budget] cuts that the MCAD is virtually immobilized as an effective organization for at least the next year.

   1975 December 27, “Editorial”, in Gay Community News, volume 3, number 26, page 4

3. transitiveTo modify a surface such that things will not stick to it
4. transitivebusinessTo tie up a capital: make a capital investment that makes that capital unavailable.

   Don't immobilize your capital in aging accounts.