dampen
See also: dämpen
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈdæmpən/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - Rhymes: -æmpən
Verb
dampen (third-person singular simple present dampens, present participle dampening, simple past and past participle dampened)
- (transitive) To make damp or moist; to make moderately wet.
- (intransitive) To become damp or moist.
- (transitive) To lessen; to dull; to make less intense (said of emotions and non-physical things).
- We won't let the bad news dampen our spirits.
- 1883 "Pomona's Daughter", Frank R. Stockton, in The Century, vol. XXVI, number 1, May, page 25
- He was dreadfully familiar with everything, and talked about some places we were longing to see in a way that considerably dampened our enthusiasm.
- 2007 October 16, Jane E. Brody, “Despite Strides, Listeria Needs Vigilance”, in The New York Times:
- Pregnant women are 20 times as likely as other healthy young women to contract listeriosis, probably because in pregnancy the immune system is dampened to prevent rejection of the fetus.
- (transitive, proscribed) To suppress vibrations (mechanical) or oscillations (electrical) by converting energy to heat (or some other form of energy).[usage 1]
- (intransitive) To become damped or deadened.
Usage notes
- Due to confusion with the similar-looking verb damp, overgeneralization from the nearby sense of "to lessen or to dull", and/or conflation of transitive "damp" with intransitive "dampen", "dampen" is increasingly used in nontechnical contexts as a synonym for "damp", especially in the case of "dampened" versus "damped". However, this usage is still considered incorrect in technical contexts.
Derived terms
Translations
make damp — see also moisten
|
depress, lessen
|
become damp, to deaden
|
Danish
Dutch
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈdɑmpə(n)/
Audio (file) - Hyphenation: dam‧pen
- Rhymes: -ɑmpən
Verb
dampen
Inflection
| Inflection of dampen (weak) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| infinitive | dampen | |||
| past singular | dampte | |||
| past participle | gedampt | |||
| infinitive | dampen | |||
| gerund | dampen n | |||
| present tense | past tense | |||
| 1st person singular | damp | dampte | ||
| 2nd person sing. (jij) | dampt | dampte | ||
| 2nd person sing. (u) | dampt | dampte | ||
| 2nd person sing. (gij) | dampt | dampte | ||
| 3rd person singular | dampt | dampte | ||
| plural | dampen | dampten | ||
| subjunctive sing.1 | dampe | dampte | ||
| subjunctive plur.1 | dampen | dampten | ||
| imperative sing. | damp | |||
| imperative plur.1 | dampt | |||
| participles | dampend | gedampt | ||
| 1) Archaic. | ||||
Etymology 2
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Middle English
Norwegian Bokmål
Norwegian Nynorsk
This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.