deaden

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

With her red-lipped rictus grin, her eyes that can beam with earnestness one minute and deaden with murderous resignation the next, Goth makes a sublime demon, but she’s also a creature of irreducible pathos.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2022

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

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

Counting it no doubt palliates if not deadens any reservations.

From New York Times ● Nov. 7, 2017

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

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 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

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

The decision still means joy or despair, but the virtual nature of acceptance and rejection, the evidence of no human hand, is a little deadening.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 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

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

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