deaden

Not that anyone reading the signs needs to attempt to blunt or deaden anything.

From BBC ● Jan. 17, 2024

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

There is always a narrative risk when recapitulating events in historical fiction — predetermination can deaden the pulse.

From New York Times ● Jan. 3, 2023

I shake my hand to deaden the pain.

From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson

And the unique geology of the city of Kyiv, built on wetlands and flood plains, deadens signals from explosions, researchers say.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 3, 2023

While I respect their sense of history and their desire for universal standards, I resist such declarations when they fossilize into something that deadens inspiration.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 28, 2019

Lyndall Gordon’s endured a “boredom that deadens the air around my father”.

From Economist ● Apr. 19, 2018

But the efforts are often clumsy, flagged with a wink-winking that deadens the gimmick, especially in a classroom scene in which a discussion of Gothic literature turns to name dropping.

From New York Times ● Jun. 29, 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

I certainly think it's made me a more appreciative one, especially coming out of winter — a season where my senses inevitably feel a little deadened after marching through a procession of gray, sunless days.

From Salon ● Apr. 1, 2023

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

Some in baseball believe the ball has somehow been deadened, muting scoring and offensive statistics across the league.

From Seattle Times ● May 9, 2022

The windows now had the closed blankness of night, a deadened look about them, a look of being blind or deaf.

From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles

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

And the shine from his latest gold medal hasn’t come close to deadening.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2024

She deserved to hurl whatever was available, to keep us moving, to speak in counterpoint to the deadening strings of my pyrrhic feet.

From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee