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Glite Dictionary
🔊 To make unable to hear 🚪 To soundproof
to deafen

to deafen

1 4.8
Make a room or building keep outside noise out
  • verb
  • /ˈdɛfən/
translation icon : insonorizar
  • It was a real message, but Oscar, deafened by the obscene video that Urdang and this weekend's Ganymede, both drunk on Tokay, had been watching from their position on the floor in front of the sofa, had missed the beginning of it.

Examples

  • And then, deafening silence.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • "He wants the farm," Crawford says, as if the music might have deafened Luster.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • After the first near miss, the small arms fire could no longer be heard by the deafened soldiers.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • Maybe I feel like shit because the toilet deafens me all fucking night.

    Spaceman (2024)

  • But my aunt deafened my words.

    Fiction book (1998)

  • The walls were soundproofed to deafen the loud music from outside.

  • To ensure privacy during meetings, the company decided to deafen the conference rooms.

  • The newly renovated studio was designed to deafen external sounds for better recording quality.

Synonyms

to insulate
vsto deafen
32 4.3

Cover something with material that stops heat, cold, or sound from passing through

is narrower, focusing only on making places resistant to outside noise
to soundproof
vsto deafen
5 3.7

To stop sound from entering or leaving a room

is more general, focusing on protecting space from outside noise
to soundproofing
vsto deafen
4.1

To make a room stop sound from entering or leaving

is the general act of keeping a space protected from external noise

How Soundproof

to deafen
1 4.8
to insulate
32 4.3
to muffle
64 5.8

Surface Forms

deafen infinitive
deafened past
deafened past participle
deafening present participle
deafens third person singular

Morphology

deafen = deaf (semi-transparent) = deaf + en

The morphological formation is the same ('deaf' + '-en'), but the sense extends metaphorically to inanimate locations (to make a room soundproof), which is a less prototypical application of 'make deaf' and may not be fully obvious to all learners.

Etymology

Deafen uses the same idea for rooms and places: it is built from deaf ('unable to hear') and -en ('make'). So to deafen a room is to 'make it not hear' by stopping sound from coming in, like making it soundproof.