deaden
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb
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to make or become less sensitive, intense, lively, etc; damp or be damped down; dull
-
(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 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
I’m to the point of considering bringing in a speaker to deaden their noise or broadcast an offensive podcast at them.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 20, 2023
That predicament will hardly pluck on Labour heartstrings, nor deaden the courage of the party's convictions.
From BBC ● Feb. 1, 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
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
The appeal of these characters challenges the habit of demographic pigeonholing that deadens and deforms too much of the discussion of popular culture.
From New York Times ● Jul. 3, 2015
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
Nothing but fancy hotels, voices deadened by plush carpeting and marble, and the endless pas de deux between me and the polite server just to get the damn drink from her tray to my lips.
From Salon ● Jul. 20, 2019
His deadened face came to life in a scowl when he saw me.
From "The Ugly One" by Leanne Statland Ellis
The decision still means joy or despair, but the virtual nature of acceptance and rejection, the evidence of no human hand, is a little deadening.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 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
If You're Glad I'll Be Frank imagined the speaking clock as a real woman speaking live, her internal monologue utterly at odds with the deadening repetitiveness of endlessly intoning "at the third stroke..."
From BBC ● Nov. 29, 2025
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.
