1590s, "to make deaf," from deaf + -en (1). The earlier verb was simply deaf (mid-15c.). For "to become deaf, to grow deaf," Old English had adeafian (intransitive), which survived into Middle English as deave but then took on a transitive sense from mid-14c. and sank from use except in dialects (where it mostly has transitive and figurative senses), leaving English without an intransitive verb here.
雙語例句
1. This noise will deafen us all!
這種喧鬧聲將使我們什么也聽不見!
來自《現代英漢綜合大詞典》
2. DEAFEN A sudden explosion deafened us for a moment.