The deafening klaxons can leave one feeling helpless, but there are still steps you can take to mitigate the damage.
The hype had been deafening on the work; the auction sales pitch even compared it to the “Mona Lisa.”
The decibel level of all this at Fox and the usual redoubts will be deafening.
One time a bomb shook the house—there was a deafening boom, and I thought we would die.
For the next couple of minutes there was nothing but gunfire, deafening gunfire.
I see,” said Ralph above the deafening roar of the wind and the grinding wheels, “the Night Express.
Small wonder that the deafening whistle-blast and cry of "All ashore!"
She had hardly spoken when a swift shaft of blinding light and a deafening crack of thunder sent a panic into every one.
With a deafening rasp it sprang toward them, blind but terrible.
It increased by easy stages, until at last the sound was deafening, and hurt the ear as if with a physical pain.
"very loud," 1590s, from present participle of deafen (q.v.). Deafening silence is attested by 1830.
1590s, "to make deaf," from deaf + -en (1). The earlier verb was simply deaf (mid-15c.). For "to become deaf, to grow deaf," Old English had adeafian (intransitive), which survived into Middle English as deave but then took on a transitive sense from mid-14c. and sank from use except in dialects (where it mostly has transitive and figurative senses), leaving English without an intransitive verb here.
deafen deaf·en (děf'ən)
v. deaf·ened, deaf·en·ing, deaf·ens
To make deaf, especially momentarily by a loud noise.
