deaden

The truth, however, is the obscure word - meaning "to deaden" - is the name of a police-led training exercise.

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

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

From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques

He suffered two near-fatal poisonings in 2015 and 2017 and developed polyneuropathy, a condition that deadens the feeling in his limbs.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 26, 2024

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

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

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

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

I sat on the bank, took off socks and boots, and dipped my feet in water so cold it burned until the freezing went deep and deadened feeling.

From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck

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

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

We already know you can kill what’s up on-screen, deadening us with your storytelling.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2023

My interest grew more acute with every deadening hour in the junkyard, until one day I had a bizarre thought: that I should enroll in the public school.

From "Educated" by Tara Westover