deaden

“We’d put these special blankets up on the walls to deaden the sound for shooting and it was quiet.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026

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

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

“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

But as a series of historic droughts deadens vast expanses of South America, he fears a worsening water crisis could do what other calamities couldn’t: Bust his third-generation agribusiness.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 24, 2021

And, I find Charles Yu a wonder — it’s so difficult to engage in structural experimentation and metafictional play that intensifies rather than deadens emotional resonance.

From New York Times ● Apr. 15, 2021

This tough base deadens the sound as the glass hits a table, improves grip and protects the vessel from smashing if you drop it.

From The Guardian ● Jun. 15, 2020

I find myself pawing at my left ear periodically, trying to clean away whatever deadens its ability to collect sounds.

From "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

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

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

Longstreet felt a depression so profound it deadened him.

From "The Killer Angels: The Classic Novel of the Civil War" by Michael Shaara

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

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

I’m reluctant to embrace that particular stay-in-your-lane logic, which is ultimately deadening to the cause of art and empathy.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2023

The tone in his voice was flat and deadening and frankly starting to scare me a little.

From "All American Boys" by Jason Reynolds