Search the Dictionary

fixed in an erect position on the bridge of a violin, or similar instrument, in order to deaden or soften the tone.

ke numb; to deprive of the power of sensation or motion; to render senseless or inert; to deaden; to benumb; to stupefy. For lazy winter numbs the laboring hand. Dryden. Like dull narcotics, numbing pain. Tennyson.

To reduce the edge, pungency, or violent action of; to dull; to blunt; to deaden; to quell; as, to obtund the acrimony of the gall. [Archaic] Harvey. They...have filled all our law books with the obtunding story of their suits and trials. Milton.

Dull; deadened; as, obtuse sound. Johnson.

by tamping; to fill in or spread with mortar, as a floor or partition, for the purpose of deadening sound. See Pugging, 2.

the like, laid between the joists under the boards of a floor, or within a partition, to deaden sound; -- in the United States usually called deafening.

nd boarding, boards for holding pugging, placed in partitions of under floors in order to deaden sounds. -- Sound bow, in a series of transverse sections of a bell, that segment against which the clapper strikes, being the part which is most efficacious in producing the sound. See Illust. of Bell. -- Sound post. (Mus…

To stop; to extinguish; to deaden; to quench; as, to stifle the breath; to stifle a fire or flame. Bodies . . . stifle in themselves the rays which they do not reflect or transmit. Sir I. Newton.

To dull or deaden the sensibility of; to overcome; especially, to overpower one's sense of hearing. And stunned him with the music of the spheres. Pope.

the axle box of the trailing wheels of a locomotive engine, and so placed as to assist in deadening any shock which may occur. Weale. -- Trailing wheel, a hind wheel of a locomotive when it is not a driving wheel; also, one of the hind wheels of a carriage.

ion, as of a pendulum or musical string. As a harper lays his open palm Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations. Longfellow.