(a.) To make as dead; to impair in vigor, force, activity, or sensation; to lessen the force or acuteness of; to blunt; as, to deaden the natural powers or feelings; to deaden a sound.
(a.) To lessen the velocity or momentum of; to retard; as, to deaden a ship's headway.
(a.) To make vapid or spiritless; as, to deaden wine.
(a.) To deprive of gloss or brilliancy; to obscure; as, to deaden gilding by a coat of size.
Example Sentences:
(1) Later, when Leven moved to another squat, in Maida Vale, London, he suggested they bring in a bass player and percussionist to form a band, and they started rehearsing "with mattresses around the walls to deaden the sound, but still annoying the neighbours".
(2) But I am trying to claw the innocent joy of Halloween out of the cold, deadened clutches of the Zombie of Forced Sexiness.
(3) My guides are three of the founders of a pressure group-cum-political party called 1st 4 Kirkby , founded to try to break through what they see as deadened local politics (there are 63 councillors in the borough of Knowsley, all of them Labour), and push for a very different regeneration plan.
(4) Yesterday, David Cameron pushed things along , acknowledging that boosting Holyrood’s status would reopen big questions for England, and making reference to last year’s report by the McKay commission – a plan that offered a somewhat underwhelming vision of “compromise rather than conflict”, but set out a future in which: “Decisions taken in the Commons which have a separate and distinct effect for England (or England-and-Wales)” would largely “be taken only with the consent of a majority of MPs sitting for constituencies in England (or England-and-Wales).” As is usually the case with such texts, most of it was couched in terms of deadened officialspeak.
(5) All this dust has a peculiar way of deadening the sound.
(6) These scenes still have a certain, fleeting power and effect – even if we are deadened and wearied by the pornographic thrill of spectacular screen violence.
(7) And it's a bit deadening because journalists are, as a rule, better at thinking about journalism – including the most fundamental question of all, hinted at in my title tonight – of whether there is such a thing as journalism.
(8) With its tendencies to exhaust, to amplify despair, to deaden my anguish briefly before bringing it back two-fold – booze was counter to the mission.
(9) Despite the diversity of his career, a common thread throughout all his films, from the gleeful highs of Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop II, True Romance, The Last Boy Scout and Crimson Tide, to the deadening lows of his first film The Hunger, Revenge and Domino (Keira Knightley plays a bounty hunter – let us speak no more about it), is the whizz-bang-chop-cut style.
(10) The familiar biblical words, the quavering congregation working its way through Victorian hymns, the priest, who often has never met the deceased: all these deaden and distance.
(11) Though Tony Blair (currently, in his pronouncements on the EU , highlighting Labour's reputation for floating far above ordinary lives with an amazing absence of self-awareness) was actually a much better rhetorician than received wisdom suggests, everyone around him quickly succumbed to a deadened kind of thought and expression.
(12) In the US, relying on donors deadens the arts, filling their boards with the conservative-minded, failing to stimulate experiment and imagination – as only independent funding can.
(13) It also plans to mitigate the deadening effects of strict delineation of segments of the city by creating mixed-use neighbourhood centres using “new design ideas and concepts to provide a complete live-work-play-learn environment for residents”.
(14) The word "consultation" has that deadening thud of the political euphemism.
(15) It is perhaps some token of their jitteriness about school surveillance that no minister will talk to me, but I am invited to send in a list of questions, which brings forth a pretty miserable response, indicative of that ingrained tendency of people in power to respond to stuff based on matters of principle with deadening officialspeak.
(16) The spectre of “old corruption” – a deadening lattice of sweetheart deals, public offices traded for personal profit – was a permanent fixture at British elections until the mid-19th century.
(17) He asked for "pardon for those who are complacent and closed amid comforts which have deadened their hearts" and "forgiveness for those who by their decisions at the global level have created situations that lead to these tragedies".
(18) Similarly, alcohol is often used to reduce anxiety and deaden sadness.
(19) Boredom and a deadening sense of total pointlessness seem to drive a lot of meaningless crimes, from the Hungerford and Columbine shootings to the Dando murder, and there have been dozens of similar crimes in the US and elsewhere over the past 30 years.
(20) The possible action, as risk factor of peripheral arteriosclerosis, of the emotional stress; the effect of the social support to deaden this stress, and some aspects of the personality as fundamental regulator of the individual behaviour, are analyzed.
Leaden
Definition:
(a.) Made of lead; of the nature of lead; as, a leaden ball.
(a.) Like lead in color, etc. ; as, a leaden sky.
(a.) Heavy; dull; sluggish.
Example Sentences:
(1) There is a heavy, leaden feeling in your chest, rather as when someone you love dearly has died; but no one has – except, perhaps, you.
(2) In ancient Rome and during the Renaissance compression by means of leaden plates was a well-known treatment of cancer.
(3) DCMS secretary Maria Miller last week promised to fight for the arts: untouched by loftier values her leaden utilitarianism in calling the arts a "compelling product" came under fire, but she did lay out a good commercial case.
(4) There is no way that the show could have been made without it, because otherwise all the action would have been leaden with exposition.
(5) The murine dilute suppressor gene, dsu, was previously shown to suppress the dilute coat color phenotypes of mice homozygous for the dilute (d), leaden (ln), and ashen (ash) mutations.
(6) Sixty patients with probable atypical depression--defined as meeting Research Diagnostic Criteria for depressive illness, having reactive mood, and having one of four associated symptoms (hyperphagia, hypersomnolence, leaden feeling, and sensitivity to rejection)--took part in a study contrasting phenelzine, imipramine, and placebo.
(7) The football was leaden in the first half and, once again, there were times when an impatient crowd struggled to contain their frustrations.
(8) The syndrome is characterized by profound dysfunction of the central nervous system, silver-leaden colored hair, abnormal melanosomes and melanocytes, and abnormal inclusion bodies in fibroblasts, bone marrow histiocytes and lymphocytes which appear to represent abnormal lysosomal bodies.
(9) In addition, scatter radiation exposure of the head decreased by 54% by covering the patient with a rubber leaden blanket (0.25 mm Pb).
(10) They left as the leaden sun started to dip; federal police stretched yellow crime scene tape around the sites.
(11) 6.08pm BST 36 min: A leaden-footed touch from Weimann puts the ball out of play deep in Liverpool territory, surrendering possession to the visitors in the form of a throw-in.
(12) The hour struck, 9.17pm, and leaden silence fell, broken only by the babble of TV reporters beside their mobile trucks.
(13) In the fifteenth his legs were leaden; Frazier punished him immediately and before the round had gone a minute a sickeningly violent left hook smashed across the right side of Ali's face, instantly increasing the swelling that had developed there earlier and lifting him flat on his back with his legs kicking high towards the ring lights.
(14) If it’s just going to be leaden, and heavy, and bureaucratic, we will lose out.” Speaking to the Guardian as the CBI launches a new report analysing the factors that make some regions more economically successful than others, Fairbairn urged the government to invest more in boosting school standards in order to help address the financial concerns that led to Brexit.
(15) 9.13pm BST 12 min: A leaden touch from Jerome Boateng on the edge of his own penalty area puts Per Mertesacker under pressure from Slimani, but the German centre-half clears.
(16) As sendoffs go, it is probably fair to say Roy Hodgson hoped for better in England’s final match before Euro 2016 than seeing his team look so leaden, the crowd so bored they resorted to making their own entertainment and a tetchy press conference when the questions centred around whether his team were heading into another tournament without any clarity about their best way of playing.
(17) Dowsett set off at positively leaden pace in the opening lap and a half but once he hit cruising speed, he maintained the same even pace throughout, covering most of his laps in about 17sec, raising his game approaching the half-hour and pushing hard in the final 15 minutes.
(18) 14 min: A decent scoring opportunity for Brazil goes to waste after a disappointingly leaden-footed touch from Neymar, who is sporting an interesting mohawk type barnet that makes him resemble a toilet brush.
(19) Through the leaden rain of a battleship-grey morning in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Britain drifts a flurry of music by Antonio Vivaldi.
(20) An enhanced development of pituitary tumors was observed in virgin female mice of the C57 Leaden strain following repeated oral administration of synthetic progestins.