deflationn.

1891 Pall Mall Gaz. 6 Aug. 1/3 A new patent valve, possessing the long-desired means for deflation as well as inflation.

1968 R. Passmore & J. S. Robson Compan. Med. Stud. I. xxix. 22/2 An imposed, maintained deflation of the lungs increases the frequency, or force, or both, of spontaneous inspiratory efforts.

1893 J. Walther in National Geographic Mag. IV. 176 We say of the wind that it ‘sweeps’ over the ground; for this word means nothing else than that the wind cleans the ground of all loose particles that cover it. Translated into technical geologic language, it is called ‘deflation’, but that means nothing else than the every-day word ‘sweep’.

1898 J. Geikie Earth Sculpt. 20 The transporting action of the wind, or ‘deflation’ as it is termed, goes on without ceasing.

1910 P. Lake & R. H. Rastall Text-bk. Geol. 73 Erosion by wind divides itself naturally into two parts—removal by material or deflation, which of course comes under the heading of transport, and actual corrasion or wearing away of the rocks by the dynamical effect of moving sand.

1954 W. D. Thornbury Princ. Geomorphol. xii. 302 Some geologists..believe that deflation is a relatively insignificant process..in the reduction of desert landscapes.

1970 R. J. Small Study of Landforms ix. 300 Deflation could gradually deepen the hollow until the water-table was exposed.

1920 R. G. Hawtrey in Rep. Brit. Assoc. 1919 252 To restore a depreciated unit to its normal gold value requires a measure of deflation. Deflation, which is a reversal of the process of inflation, must mean a decrease in the aggregate of money incomes.

1920 Glasgow Herald 11 May 10 The process of deflation likely to result from the new rights of the Federal Reserve system to discount on a graded scale.

1923 Guernsey Star 25 Jan. The primary ground on which a policy of gradual deflation is recommended is that it raises the exchange value of the pound sterling in relation to the dollar and hastens our return to the gold standard.

1956 Ann. Reg. 1955 227 Influential bankers and industrialists complained that the ‘credit squeeze’ had been overdone and warned against the danger of deflation.

1933 H. G. Wells Shape of Things to Come ii. §12. 243 The mindless exaltation and the subsequent mindless deflation of American spiritual life.

1944 H. G. Wells '42 to '44 157 Maybe his mental trouble is not hopeless. He may be cured by his deflation.

1958 G. J. Warnock Eng. Philos. since 1900 xiii. 173 The contemporary philosopher's eye is characteristically cold and his pen, perhaps, apt to be employed as an instrument of deflation.