Thesaurus.com
Dictionary.com
Definitions

deaden

[ded-n] / ˈdɛd n /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

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

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

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

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

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

Toradol, a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory often used to manage short-term postoperative pain, deadens feeling and inhibits the body’s ability to sense injury.

From Washington Post Mar. 9, 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

More than a decade later, in August 2005, 100 homes were destroyed in the Blue Mountains when a Columbia Rural Electric Association line sparked against a deadened tree and burned 52,000 acres.

From Seattle Times Jan. 2, 2022

Nothing but fancy hotels, voices deadened by plush carpeting and marble, and the endless pas de deux between me and the polite server just to get the damn drink from her tray to my lips.

From Salon Jul. 20, 2019

He cursed his deadened arm and lack of weapon.

From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo

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

They were trying to return from popular Emerald Bay to their west side home in midafternoon when eight-foot swells swamped the boat, deadening the engine and capsizing the vessel off rocky Rubicon Point near D.L.

From Los Angeles Times Jun. 30, 2025

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




Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Dictionary.com's Learning Companion

Go beyond just looking up words.
Remember them forever with VocabTrainer.

Start training