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• v  make less intense
  blunted emotions
• v  make numb or insensitive
• v  make dull or blunt
• v  make less sharp
• v  make less lively, intense, or vigorous; impair in vigor, force, activity, or sensation
  Terror blunted her feelings
• s  made dull or blunt

• Still, it is unlikely that those operations alone could have blunted the Mahdi army and the Sunni insurgency in Ghazaliyah.
• Once a person's cortisol level gets completely blunted, it seems to stay that way for years.
• This would produce an ungraceful, blunted top.

• blunt
• numb
• benumb
• dull
• deaden
• dulled

• sharpen
• enliven

News & Articles

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• Stress of the fathers can be visited upon their sons
  Just in case you needed another reason to be nice to Dad today: New research out of the University of Pennsylvania's medical and veterinary schools found stressful experiences can be transferred to sperm, increasing the odds that offspring will have blunted responses to stress. That, in turn, is known to be linked to anxiety and depression.
  June 17, 2013 - The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Opinion: California budget isn’t really balanced
  By Dan Walters, Sacramento Bee Gov. Jerry Brown blunted the expansionist tendencies of his fellow Democrats in writing a new state budget, but that doesn’t mean it’s the “balanced” spending plan that he and other Capitol politicians are claiming. They define “balanced” as the state’s [...]
  June 15, 2013 - Lake Tahoe News
• Stress experienced by men alters sperm and affects children
  PHILADELPHIA, June 14 (UPI) -- Stress as a pre-adolescent or adult leaves a lasting impression on a dad's sperm that gives his kids a blunted reaction to stress, U.S. researchers say.
  June 15, 2013 - UPI

Quotes

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• Schalk Burger in Sportinglife.co.za
  Asked whether he thought the new laws had compromised South Africa's attacking edge, Burger added: "No, I don't think it's blunted us. Even if you trip over someone you've just got to try and stay up somehow. As I said, it's just a change in...
• Tom Axworthy in National Post
  There was a mood of self-congratulations as all concerned thought they had blunted the Bloc,Axworthy wrote. "But there are one or two inconvenient facts. What exactly is a Quebecois nation? Is it French-speaking Quebecers? Aboriginal...
• Norman Solomon in The Guardian
  In 2004 Solomon wrote that the Committee to Protect Journalists had reported that "the close quarters shared by (embedded) journalists and troops inevitably blunted reporters' critical edge" before quoting LA Times reporter David Zucchino, who...