damper

Noun

damper (countable and uncountable, plural dampers)

1. A valve or movable plate in the flue or other part of a stove, furnace, etc., used to check or regulate the draught of air.
2. A contrivance (sordine), as in a pianoforte, to deaden vibrations; or, as in other pieces of mechanism, to check some action at a particular time.
3. Something that kills the mood.
   • Nor did Sabrina′s presence seem to act as any damper at the modest little festivities.1887, William Black, Sabina Zembra
4. A device that decreases the oscillations of a system.
   • Figure 7.13 shows stability diagrams that illustrate the effect of the magnitude of the damping coefficient of the damper on the flutter of the pipe.2019, Yoshihiko Sugiyama, Mikael A. Langthjem, Kazuo Katayama, Dynamic Stability of Columns Under Nonconservative Forces, page 97
5. A shock absorber.
   • In general, steel springs were stipulated for primary suspension, although rubber was accepted for auxiliary springing; hydraulic dampers were specified and the use of laminated springs ruled out.1960 December, “The first hundred 25 kV a.c. electric locomotives for B.R.”, in Trains Illustrated, page 726
   • However, complaints quickly surfaced about the ride quality of the SIG BT41 bogies, which was only cured by the fitting of additional dampers to the bogies and couplers.2022 September 21, Ben Jones, “IC225s: the Electras go gliding on”, in RAIL, number 966, page 40
6. (Australia, New Zealand) Bread made from a basic recipe of flour, water, milk, and salt, but without yeast.
   • The farm-men usually bake their flour into flat cakes, which they call dampers, and cook these in the ashes.1827, Peter Cunningham, Two Years in New South Wales, ii.190, quoted in G. A. Wilkes, A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms, 1978, →ISBN
   • The flour bespattering Squeaker's now neglected clothes spoke eloquently of his clumsy efforts at damper making.1902, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Bush Studies (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 15
7. (UK, obsolete, slang) A shop till.
   • A certain class of 'City Arabs' do nothing but steal provisions from shop doors and sell them for one-tenth of their value, or less, […] while a fourth again do nothing but "draw the dampers," i. e. steal from shop-tills.1853, Joseph Kay, The Condition and Education of Poor Children in English and in German Towns, page 20