Deafen

//ˈdɛfən// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To make deaf, either temporarily or permanently. transitive

    "The head injury deafened her for life."

  2. 2
    make soundproof wordnet
  3. 3
    To make soundproof. transitive

    "to deafen a wall or a floor"

  4. 4
    make or render deaf wordnet
  5. 5
    To stun, as with noise. dialectal, figuratively, rare, sometimes, transitive

    "Racine left the ground […] deafened, dazzled and tired to death."

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  1. 6
    be unbearably loud wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
awake the deadbaffleblastblast the earboomcrash

Example

More examples

"The head injury deafened her for life."

Etymology

From deaf + -en (verbal suffix), compare Middle English deven, deaven (“to make deaf”), Old English ādēafian (“to deafen”), Dutch verdoven (“to stupefy, deafen”), German betäuben (“to stun, stupefy, deafen”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.