quasi-deafening

noun

deadening ( def 2 ).

Origin:
1590–1600; deafen + -ing¹

Related forms

half-deaf·en·ing, adjective

non·deaf·en·ing, adjective

non·deaf·en·ing·ly, adverb

qua·si-deaf·en·ing, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Link To quasi-deafening

Collins

World English Dictionary

deafening (ˈdɛf^ənɪŋ)

—*adj*
	excessively loud: deafening music

'deafeningly

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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00:10

Quasi-deafening is always a great word to know.

So is interrobang. Does it mean:

a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.

a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.

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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

deafening

"very loud," 1590s, from deafen (q.v.). Deafening silence is attested by 1830.

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

deafen deaf·en (děf'ən)
v. deaf·ened, deaf·en·ing, deaf·ens
To make deaf, especially momentarily by a loud noise.

Matching Quote

"In the small town each citizen had done something in his own way to build the community. The town booster had a vision of the future which he tried to fulfill. The suburb dweller by contrast started with the future—with a shopping center for twice the population, with a school building already built, with churches constructed, with parks and playgrounds and swimming pools. These were as essential to building a suburb as the prematurely grand hotel had been to building a city in the wilderness. In large developments where the developer had a plan, and even in the smaller developments, there was a new kind of paternalism: not the quasi-feudal paternalism of the company town, nor the paternalism of the utopian ideologue. This new kind of paternalism was fostered by the American talent for organization, by the rising twentieth century American standard of living, and by the American genius for mass production. It was the paternalism of the market place. The suburban developer, unlike the small-town booster, seldom intended to live in the community he was building. For him community was a commodity, a product to be sold at a profit."

-Daniel J. Boorstin

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deafening

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