| 释义 |
deaden, v.|ˈdɛd(ə)n|
[f. dead a. + -en5: a comparatively recent formation, taking the place of the earlier dead v.]
I.
1. intr. To become dead (lit. and fig.); to lose vitality, force, vigour, brightness, etc.
1723Lond. Gaz. No. 6171/3 The Wind deadning..we could not make the Way we expected. 1801Southey Thalaba xii. viii, The dash Of the out-breakers deaden'd. 1835New Monthly Mag. XLIII. 157 The bells, which you hear loudly at first, begin to deaden. 1869Lowell Pictures from Appledore vi, Yet they momently cool and dampen and deaden.
II. trans.
2. a. To deprive of life, kill (e.g. the tissues).
1807–26S. Cooper First Lines Surg. (ed. 5) 145 By which..some of the fibres around the track of the ball are deadened. Mod. To deaden the nerve of the tooth.
b. spec. (U.S.) To kill (trees) by ‘girdling’, i.e. cutting out a section of the bark all round; to clear (ground) by killing the trees in this manner.
1775Adair Amer. Ind. 405 They deadened the trees by cutting through the bark. 1855W. Sargent Braddock's Exped. 84 A good woodsman will soon deaden a number of acres, which by the next seed-time will be ready for cultivation.
3. fig.
a. To deprive of vitality, force, or sensibility; to benumb, to dull.
1684–9T. Burnet Th. Earth (J.), We will..by a soft answer deaden their force by degrees. 1712Addison Spect. No. 487 ⁋3 That Activity which is natural to the human Soul, and which is not in the power of Sleep to deaden or abate. 1798T. Jefferson Writ (1859) IV. 205 It deadens also the demand for wheat. 1863G. J. Whyte-Melville Gladiators II. 105 Any anodyne that could deaden or alleviate her pain. 1876Mozley Univ. Serm. vi. (1877) 129 To benumb and deaden worship.
b. To render dead or insensible to.
a1690E. Hopkins Serm. Acts xxvi. 28 (R.) How deadned are they to those sinful ways, which before they much delighted in? 1874Green Short Hist. viii. §1. 447 Its [the Bible's] words..fell on ears which custom had not deadened to their force and beauty.
4. To deprive of some effective physical quality:
a. To deprive of lustre or brilliancy; to make dull in colour or aspect; to give a dull surface to (metal, glass, etc.): see dead a. 13 b.
1666Pepys Diary 24 Oct., He..lays the fault of it upon the fire, which deadened..the glory of his services. 1706Pope Let. to Walsh 2 July, In painting, a man may lay colours one upon another, till they stiffen and deaden the piece. 1799G Smith Laboratory I. 185 How to deaden the glass and fit it to paint upon. 1855Owen Anat. Vertebr. Anim. ii. (L.), [It] deadens the whiteness of the tissue.
b. To deprive (liquor) of sharpness or flavour, to make vapid.
c. To make (sound) dull or indistinct.
d. To reduce (quicksilver) from the liquid to the granular state in the process of amalgamation.
1683Tryon Way to Health 208 Nothing..does more deaden and flat the Spirits, especially in green Herbs, than slack Fires. 1725[see deadened]. 1828Webster, Deaden..to make vapid or spiritless; as, to deaden wine or beer. 1828Scott F.M. Perth xxvii, To shut out, or deaden at least, a sound so piercing. 1872[see deadened]. 1881Raymond Mining Gloss., Deadened Mercury.
e. To make impervious to sound; = deafen v. 3.
1901R. Sturgis Dict. Archit. I. 751/1 Deaden,..to construct so as to be dead, in the sense of..impervious to sound, as a floor which has been made non-conducting. 1926‘J. J. Connington’ Death at Swaythling Court vii. 121 The kitchen is next the workshop and the walls are very badly deadened, so I could hear voices talking next door.
5. To destroy or reduce the energy of (motion).
1665Glanvill Sceps. Sci. (J.), This motion would be quickly deadened by countermotions. 1828Webster, Deaden..3. To deaden the motion of a ship or of the wind. 1867Smyth Sailor's World-bk., Deaden a ship's way, to retard a vessel's progress by bracing in the yards. |