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

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

“Combine that with his ability to soften the hands and deaden the contact,” Annacone wrote, “and you have terrific ingredients to execute that deft touch.”

From Washington Post ● May 27, 2022

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

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

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

His deadened face came to life in a scowl when he saw me.

From "The Ugly One" by Leanne Statland Ellis

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

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 30, 2024

That too I've learned in the cellar, and not by deadening my sense of perception; I'm invisible, not blind.

From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison