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

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

That predicament will hardly pluck on Labour heartstrings, nor deaden the courage of the party's convictions.

From BBC ● Feb. 1, 2023

After bandaging them neatly she had administered a potion that would deaden the pain and induce sleep.

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

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

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

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

From Economist ● Apr. 19, 2018

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

Only when the TV noise'd deadened did I realize that the window’d snapped shut.

From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell

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

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2024

Where students are most in need of help is where the most stripped-down, deadening material is put in front of them.

From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove