deadening

deadening

1. present participle and gerund of deaden
   • 1948 January and February, Cecil J. Allen, “British Locomotive Practice and Performance”, in Railway Magazine, page 48:

     Until, of course, the war and its aftermath came to lay their deadening hand on all railway progress.

   • 2024 January 10, Chris Green, “Empowered...energised... and managing for success”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 22:

     So, how are we going to persuade the current government that command-and-control is a deadening leadership style which can never deliver the financial results of a liberated rail industry?

deadening (plural deadenings)

1. The process by which something is deadened.
   • 2012, Daniel Sapen, Freud's Lost Chord: Discovering Jazz in the Resonant Psyche, page 38:

     The structural theory doesn't only focus on the negations, repressions, disavowals, and deadenings of the ego in the face of its encounters within and without.

2. A forest clearing created by girdling the trees.