▪ I. deadening, vbl. n.
(ˈdɛd(ə)nɪŋ)
[-ing1.]
1. The action of the verb deaden, q.v.
| 1866 Timmins Industr. Hist. Birmingham 300 The [brass] work becomes speckled or irregular in the ‘deadening’. 1875 Whitney Life Lang. vii. 118 The deadening of the native processes of composition and derivation and inflection. 1883 League Jrnl. 20 Oct. 657/3 Mental depression and moral deadening. |
b. concr. That which deadens sound, colour, etc.
| 1874 Knight Dict. Mech., Deadening. i. (Carpentry.) Packing in a floor, ceiling, or wall, to prevent conduction of sound [cf. deafen v. 3]. 2. (Gilding.) A thin coat of glue..smeared over a surface that is gilded in distemper, and is not to be burnished. |
2. U.S. The action of killing trees by ‘girdling’; concr. a clearing in which the trees have been ‘girdled’. (See deaden 2 b.)
| 1800 Addison Amer. Law. Rep. 306 There was a deadening on C's land as early as 1769. 1855 W. Sargent Braddock's Exped. 83 A deadening..signifies the effect produced on the trees by girdling, or cutting a ring about their trunks. |
▪ II. ˈdeadening, ppl. a.
[-ing2.]
That deadens: see the verb.
| 1805 Southey Madoc in Azt. xviii, From his shield The deadening force communicated ran Up his stunn'd arm. 1875 Hamerton Intell. Life xi. i. 402 The deadening influences of routine. |