deflate
verb
Simple meaning
Reduce or cut back the amount or availability of, creating a decline in value or prices.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihflaytSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dɪfˈleɪt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
Collapse by releasing contained air or gas
Release contained air or gas from
Reduce or cut back the amount or availability of, creating a decline in value or prices
transitiveeconomics
To reduce the amount of available currency or credit and thus lower prices.
transitive
To cause an object to decrease or become smaller in some parameter, e.g. to shrink
transitive
To let (someone) down, disappoint them, or put them in their place.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Reduce or cut back the amount or availability of, creating a decline in value or prices
Used this way, deflate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use deflate
- “The bad review of his work deflated his self-confidence.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.