Word.ws English Dictionary

deadening

deadening is the present participle and gerund of deaden.

Noun

deadening (plural deadenings)

  1. The process by which something is deadened.
    • The structural theory doesn't only focus on the negations, repressions, disavowals, and deadenings of the ego in the face of its encounters within and without.2012, Daniel Sapen, Freud's Lost Chord: Discovering Jazz in the Resonant Psyche, page 38
  2. A forest clearing created by girdling the trees.

Meaning of deaden

Verb

deaden (third-person singular simple present deadens, present participle deadening, simple past and past participle deadened)

  1. (transitive) To render less lively; to diminish; to muffle.
    • deaden the pain
  2. (intransitive) To become less lively; to diminish (by itself).
  3. (transitive) To make soundproof.
    • to deaden a wall or a floor

Forms of deadening

pluraldeadenings

Questions about deadening

What does deadening mean?
Deadening means the process by which something is deadened.
What is deadening the present participle and gerund of?
Deadening is the present participle and gerund of deaden.
What part of speech is deadening?
Deadening is a noun.
What is the plural of deadening?
The plural of deadening is deadenings.

Words near deadening in the dictionary

  1. deadenders
  2. deadends
  3. deadened
  4. deadener
  5. deadeners
  6. deadening
  7. deadeningly
  8. deadenings
  9. deadenosylate
  10. deadenosylated
  11. deadenosylates

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: deadening (page history and authors); deaden (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “deadening.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/deadening. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.