deaden
Americanverb (used with object)
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deadens,
present (3rd person singular)
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deadened,
past participle, past
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deadening
present participle
verb (used without object)
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deadens,
present (3rd person singular)
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deadened,
past participle, past
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deadening
present participle
verb
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to make or become less sensitive, intense, lively, etc; damp or be damped down; dull
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(tr) to make acoustically less resonant
he deadened the room with heavy curtains
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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deadensimple
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deadenssimple
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have deadenedperfect
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has deadenedperfect
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am deadeningprogressive
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are deadeningprogressive
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is deadeningprogressive
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have been deadeningperfect progressive
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has been deadeningperfect progressive
Past
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deadenedsimple
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had deadenedperfect
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was deadeningprogressive
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were deadeningprogressive
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had been deadeningperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of deaden
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The flares instantly set fire to the surrounding acoustic foam panels, installed to deaden the sound.
From BBC ● Jan. 17, 2026
The biggest is the ball and the size of the stitches, Nathan said, and MLB made slight adjustments to deaden the ball prior to the 2021 season.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 7, 2023
There is always a narrative risk when recapitulating events in historical fiction — predetermination can deaden the pulse.
From New York Times ● Jan. 3, 2023
With her red-lipped rictus grin, her eyes that can beam with earnestness one minute and deaden with murderous resignation the next, Goth makes a sublime demon, but she’s also a creature of irreducible pathos.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2022
I shake my hand to deaden the pain.
From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson
“I’ve developed life-long friends on Twitter. I think it’s really sad that to get that human connection I’m going to have to deal with harassment again that damages and deadens your humanity.”
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 27, 2022
And, I find Charles Yu a wonder — it’s so difficult to engage in structural experimentation and metafictional play that intensifies rather than deadens emotional resonance.
From New York Times ● Apr. 15, 2021
Lyndall Gordon’s endured a “boredom that deadens the air around my father”.
From Economist ● Apr. 19, 2018
Toradol, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory often used to manage short-term postoperative pain, deadens feeling and inhibits the body’s ability to sense injury.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 9, 2017
It is hardly consoling to remember such a feeling, and so it deadens in our minds.
From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White
For others, stop-start has deadened the joy of driving.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
It’s pleasant to type on, thanks to each key’s even and clear sound signature, lacking ping or hollowness — though some may find it overly deadened.
From The Verge ● Aug. 30, 2022
The league’s hope was that a deadened ball would cut down on home runs and increase action in the field of play.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 6, 2022
Perhaps it’s the Rawlings baseballs, which were slightly deadened this year in a change MLB said an independent lab found would cause balls to fly 1 to 2 feet shorter when hit over 375 feet.
From Seattle Times ● May 1, 2021
I sat on the bank, took off socks and boots, and dipped my feet in water so cold it burned until the freezing went deep and deadened feeling.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
The Black Hawk helicopter was ready for take off – its rotor blades slicing through the air in the deadening heat of the Colombian Amazon.
From BBC ● Feb. 3, 2026
She then delivered a speech that denounced the notion of cultural appropriation and its deadening effects on literature.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 31, 2026
Likewise, many well-known geniuses like Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger and Fritz Lang, who were chased out of Europe by the Nazis, brilliantly exposed the hypocrisies and soul deadening conformity of mainstream American culture.
From Salon ● Jan. 1, 2026
They were trying to return from popular Emerald Bay to their west side home in midafternoon when eight-foot swells swamped the boat, deadening the engine and capsizing the vessel off rocky Rubicon Point near D.L.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2025
My interest grew more acute with every deadening hour in the junkyard, until one day I had a bizarre thought: that I should enroll in the public school.
From "Educated" by Tara Westover
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
