deflate

See also: déflaté and déflate

English

Etymology

de- +‎ (in)flate. Coined in 1891, in reference to balloons. Partly based on Latin deflo, deflare (perfect passive participle deflatus), which meant "blow away".

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /diːˈfleɪt/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: de‧flate
• Rhymes: -eɪt

Verb

A deflated balloon.

deflate (third-person singular simple present deflates, present participle deflating, simple past and past participle deflated)

1. (transitive) To remove air or some other gas from within an elastic container, e.g. a balloon or tyre.

   Coordinate terms: deaerate, deair

2. (transitive) To cause an object to decrease or become smaller in some parameter, e.g. to shrink
3. (transitive, economics) To reduce the amount of available currency or credit and thus lower prices.
4. (intransitive) To become deflated.
5. (transitive) To let (someone) down, disappoint (them), or put (them) in (their) place.

   deflate someone's ego

   • 2021 June 14, Scott Mullen, “Scotland 0-2 Czech Republic”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     Scotland's first match at a men's major finals in 23 years ended in anguish after Patrik Schick's incredible halfway-line goal helped the Czech Republic inflict a deflating opening Euro 2020 defeat at Hampden.

6. (transitive, computing) To compress (data) according to a particular algorithm.
   • 2003, Alan D Johnson, “unzip utility on HPUX”, in comp.sys.hp.hpux (Usenet):

     Never had a problem, guess I've never had to deflate multiple files!

7. (slang) To belch or flatulate

Antonyms

• inflate

Derived terms

• deflation

Translations

reduction, usually in volume

• Arabic: انْكَمَش
• Bikol Central: kupos (bcl), lupos
• Bulgarian: изпразвам (bg) (izprazvam), намалявам (bg) (namaljavam), изпускам въздуха (izpuskam vǎzduha)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 放气 (zh) (fàngqì), 放氣／放气 (zh) (fàngqì)

• Esperanto: please add this translation if you can
• Finnish: tyhjentää (fi), kutistaa (fi)
• French: dégonfler (fr), désenfler (fr)
• German: entleeren (de), sich entleeren, ablassen (de), leeren (de), verkleinern (de), verringern (de), schrumpfen (de)
• Hungarian: leereszt (hu) (tr and intr), zsugorodik (hu) (intr), összezsugorodik (hu) (intr), zsugorít (hu) (tr), csökken (hu) (intr), csökkent (hu) (tr)
• Interlingua: deflar
• Italian: deflazionare (it) (all senses)
• Latin: exanimō
• Macedonian: издишува (izdišuva)
• Polish: spuszczać powietrze impf, spuścić powietrze pf
• Portuguese: desinflar, murchar (pt), esvaziar (pt)
• Romanian: dezumfla (ro)
• Russian: сдува́ть (ru) impf (sduvátʹ), сдуть (ru) pf (sdutʹ)
• Spanish: desinflar (es), deshinchar (es)
• Swedish: släppa ur, släppa ut (luft, gas)
• Thai: แฟบ (th) (fɛ̂ɛp)