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gor, force, activity, or sensation; to lessen the force or acuteness of; to blunt; as, to deaden the natural powers or feelings; to deaden a sound.

One who, or that which, deadens or checks.

A zitherlike musical instrument, provided with dampers which, when depressed, deaden some strings, leaving free others that form a chord.

Made torpid; numbed; stupefied; deadened; as, a benumbed body and mind. -- Be*numbed"ness, n.

Having the sensibilities deadened by excess or frequency of enjoyment; sated or surfeited with pleasure; used up.

An elastic apparatus or fender, for deadening the jar caused by the collision of bodies; as, a buffer at the end of a railroad car.

To deaden the sound of (bells) by muffling the clapper.

Anything which resists or deadens a bump or shock; a buffer.

To put out, as fire; to depress or deject; to deaden; to cloud; to check or restrain, as action or vigor; to make dull; to weaken; to discourage. "To damp your tender hopes." Akenside. Usury dulls and damps all industries, improvements, and new inventions, wherein money would be stirring if it were not for this slug. B…

To become damp; to deaden. Byron.

, used to check or regulate the draught of air. (b) A contrivance, as in a pianoforte, to deaden vibrations; or, as in other pieces of mechanism, to check some action at a particular time. Nor did Sabrina's presence seem to act as any damper at the modest little festivities. W. Black.

To make dead; to deaden; to deprive of life, force, or vigor. [Obs.] Heaven's stern decree, With many an ill, hath numbed and deaded me. Chapman.

Obscurely heard; stifled; deadened. [R.] A deaf murmur through the squadron went. Dryden.

g fixed upon the box of the driving axle of a locomotive engine to support the weight and deaden shocks. [Eng.] Weale. -- Driving wheel (Mach.), a wheel that communicates motion; one of the large wheels of a locomotive to which the connecting rods of the engine are attached; -- called also, simply, driver. See Illust.…

the natural shore on the outside of the embankment which receives the stock of waves and deadens their force. Knight.

To cause to become antiquated, rigid, or fixed, as by fossilization; to mummify; to deaden. Ten layers of birthdays on a woman's head Are apt to fossilize her girlish mirth. Mrs. Browning.

To palsy; to paralyze; to deaden. [R.]

To deaden by religious or other discipline, as the carnal affections, bodily appetites, or worldly desires; to bring into subjection; to abase; to humble. With fasting mortified, worn out with tears. Harte. Mortify thy learned lust. Prior. Mortify, rherefore, your members which are upon the earth. Col. iii. 5.…

To wrap with something that dulls or deadens the sound of; as, to muffle the strings of a drum, or that part of an oar which rests in the rowlock.

To dispirit or deaden; to dull or blunt. Shak.