DEADENING • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Deadening

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/dˈɛdənɪŋ/ /dˈɛdnɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Deaden v. t. (past & past part. deadened; pres. part. deadening)

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. "As harper lays his open palm Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations."

To lessen the velocity or momentum of; to retard; as, to deaden a ship's headway.

To make vapid or spiritless; as, to deaden wine.

To deprive of gloss or brilliancy; to obscure; as, to deaden gilding by a coat of size.

To render impervious to sound, as a wall or floor; to deafen.

noun

deadening n. The act of making something futile and useless (as by routine).

Synonyms: stultification, impairment.

adjective

deadening adj.

Rendering less lively, intense, or vigorous; as, the deadening effect of some routine tasks.

So lacking in interest as to cause mental weariness; as, the deadening effect of some routine tasks.

Synonyms: boring, dreary, ho-hum, irksome, tedious, tiresome, wearisome.

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Etymology of 'Deadening'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Deadening" Quotes from Famous Books

... And this has its deadening effect upon the preacher's wife's taste, else she must go mad, living in a house where, say, there is a strip of worn church-aisle carpet down the hall—bought at a bargain by the thrifty Aid Society—a cherry-colored folding bed in the parlor along with a "golden ...

— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... hand as they walked on. How wise she was, this little Jewish girl! She had lived her short life in the world, and knew her way about in it so well. And he, so much older, felt like a child beside her, after all those long, deadening, ...

— Six Women • Victoria Cross

... kind of wealth that is not common, that is not given freely; and for that reason it has a deadening and demoralizing effect upon the minds of those who cultivate and increase it for its own sake, or fail to put it to its larger and more human uses. Wise distribution is the only way in which money can be made valuable ...

— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various

... of a country gentleman. Bates was getting on in years, of course, which would account for much of his increased graveness and passivity, but not all. Unless Miss Ocky's suspicions were wide of the mark, he, too, had come under the deadening influence of Varr's dominance—ah! but had he entirely? At the very moment she was thinking about it, Simon had uttered a terse comment, as biting as acid, upon some negligible feature of the dinner-service. No faintest flicker of his facial muscles gave any hint that Bates had heard ...

— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... him, bearing him to and fro, deadening his pain but giving him no rest. He tossed on the troubled waters for interminable ages. He watched a full moon rise blood-red and awful and turn gradually to a whiteness of still more appalling purity. For a long, long time he watched ...

— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

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