(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.
Muffle
Definition:
(n.) The bare end of the nose between the nostrils; -- used esp. of ruminants.
(v. t.) To wrap up in something that conceals or protects; to wrap, as the face and neck, in thick and disguising folds; hence, to conceal or cover the face of; to envelop; to inclose; -- often with up.
(v. t.) To prevent seeing, or hearing, or speaking, by wraps bound about the head; to blindfold; to deafen.
(v. t.) To wrap with something that dulls or deadens the sound of; as, to muffle the strings of a drum, or that part of an oar which rests in the rowlock.
(v. i.) To speak indistinctly, or without clear articulation.
(v. t.) Anything with which another thing, as an oar or drum, is muffled; also, a boxing glove; a muff.
(v. t.) An earthenware compartment or oven, often shaped like a half cylinder, used in furnaces to protect objects heated from the direct action of the fire, as in scorification of ores, cupellation of ore buttons, etc.
(v. t.) A small oven for baking and fixing the colors of painted or printed pottery, without exposing the pottery to the flames of the furnace or kiln.
(v. t.) A pulley block containing several sheaves.
Example Sentences:
(1) Weirdly, the muffled Doppler effects of several thousand passing SUVs was quite soothing.
(2) True diastolic pressure is usually closer to the disappearance point of Korotkoff sounds than to the muffling phase.
(3) Hence his fondness for placing the camera far away from its subjects: Hidden coolly watches as a child's small world falls apart, his cries muffled by the intervening space; and Code Unknown concludes by showing how life, likened by Haneke to a flea circus, indifferently unravels on a Paris boulevard.
(4) The presence of a muffled voice led to radiologic and indirect laryngoscopic examination confirming the diagnosis.
(5) The effect of El Niño during these years compounded the muffling effect of greenhouse gases and lead to exceptionally hot global temperatures.
(6) I heard about three or four shots fired, but they were muffled, as if taking place indoors,” one witness told Agence France-Presse.
(7) Common symptoms include fever, swollen neck, difficult swallowing, muffled voice and hyperextension of the head and neck.
(8) In places there were moans and muffled cries beneath the ruins, spurring frantic efforts to dig people out with bare hands and improvised tools.
(9) The determinations of calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus in dentine showed no significant differences between LTA, muffle furnace ashing (MFA), and wet ashing.
(10) The policemen closed the doors, but the muffled screams continued outside.
(11) The samples of the mentioned tissues were dried and ashed in the muffle furnace.
(12) Questions will undoutedly be asked about Brown's vocal capabilities – once described by Guardian critic Alexis Petridis as "a muffled, gloomy honk, like a despondent goose wearing a balaclava" – and whether the band, now in middle-age, will be able to capture the heady excitement of their early days.
(13) For some it sounded muffled and far away, as though somewhere in the distance a big balloon had popped.
(14) Once again, Vince Cable is a rather lonely prophet worrying where this will lead, but this time a voice of warning somewhat muffled by collective responsibility.
(15) Fabricant, who was strongly involved in the Tory campaign in Eastleigh, tweeted: "The Conservative voice is muffled and not crisp.
(16) But instead of a traditional riot or at least some minor destruction, the place was filled with well-behaved individuals, talking in the "inside voices" with muffled jubilation (even when the US won!).
(17) Abnormal or muffled heart sounds associated with pericarditis and epicarditis was the most common sequela, occurring in 40 cases.
(18) The polite approach of London Citizens has so far yielded muffled responses, but the issue will be raised at a November board meeting: if there is no decisive yes, expect the gloves to come off, and more direct action, including a shoppers' boycott.
(19) Inadequate velopharyngeal function, whether congenital or subsequent to palatal repair, may be masked by the presence of other speech problems in this syndrome, particularly by the "muffled" voice quality which appears to be associated with an elevated and retracted tongue posture.
(20) Extreme sore throat, pooling of oral secretions, muffled voice, and elevated temperature were uncommon.