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damper
[ dam-per ]
noun
- a person or thing that damps or depresses:
His glum mood put a damper on their party.
- a movable plate for regulating the draft in a stove, furnace, etc.
- Music.
- a device in stringed keyboard instruments to deaden the vibration of the strings.
- the mute of a brass instrument, as a horn.
- Electricity. an attachment to keep the indicator of a measuring instrument from oscillating excessively, as a set of vanes in a fluid or a short-circuited winding in a magnetic field.
- Machinery. a shock absorber.
- Australian.
- a round, flat cake made of flour and water, and cooked over a campfire.
- the dough for such cakes.
damper
/ ˈdæmpə /
noun
- a person, event, or circumstance that depresses or discourages
- put a damper onput a damper on to produce a depressing or inhibiting effect on
the bad news put a damper on the party
- a movable plate to regulate the draught in a stove or furnace flue
- a device to reduce electronic, mechanical, acoustic, or aerodynamic oscillations in a system
- music the pad in a piano or harpsichord that deadens the vibration of each string as its key is released
- any of various unleavened loaves and scones, typically cooked on an open fire
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Idioms and Phrases
see put a damper on .Discover More
Example Sentences
Many workers are being granted increasing flexibility to work from home, which will continue to put a damper on future revenue.
Any periods of downward motion put a damper on cloud cover production, allowing one to discern the atmospheric waves radiating outward.
With the pandemic putting a damper on public transit, the automotive industry continued to fare well while other verticals may have seen larger sales dips.
It doesn’t have a whoosh of air or a physical damper rubbing on the wheel to make annoying sounds as the pedaling gets tougher.
Kitchell concluded, however, that if one wants to minimize damage in the unlikely event of a rare 975-year quake, earthquake dampers should be installed at a projected multimillion-dollar cost.
Changes in the level of subsidies and feed-in tariffs can put a damper on activity.
Translation: the weather put a big damper on construction activity.
If anything, the idea of Kristen Stewart, expert wet blanket, only got even damper.
The rain here in Tampa, though not yet at tropical-storm levels, has put a damper on the now delayed convention.
Leno said he felt the same as he try to put a damper on any such talk at a post-roast press conference.
Just as the Admiral was going, Ward (of the Intelligence) crossed over with a nasty little damper.
It was such a damper as to be most mortifying to an enthusiastic girl, and she drew into herself in a moment.
His friend promised to look after mother and me, but somehow the philanthropist put a damper on the promise.
The passageway was growing damper; water trickled down the walls and gathered in fetid pools on the floor.
A damper seemed to have been placed on all their spirits, and the flow of conversation was sluggish and dull.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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