different between damp vs stifle

English

Etymology

From Middle English damp (noun) and dampen (“to stifle; suffocate”). Akin to Low German damp, Dutch damp, and German Dampf (“vapor, steam, fog”), Icelandic dampi, Swedish damm (“dust”), and to German dampf imperative of dimpfen (“to smoke”). Also Middle English dampen (“to extinguish, choke, suffocate”). Ultimately all descend from Proto-Germanic *dampaz.

Pronunciation

• enPR: d?mp, IPA^(key): /dæmp/
• Rhymes: -æmp

Adjective

damp (comparative damper, superlative dampest)

1. In a state between dry and wet; moderately wet; moist.
   • 25 January 2017, Leena Camadoo writing in The Guardian, Dominican banana producers at sharp end of climate change

     Once the farms have been drained and the dead plants have been cut down and cleared, farmers then have to be alert for signs of black sigatoka, a devastating fungus which flourishes in damp conditions and can destroy banana farms.

   • 1697, John Dryden translating Virgil, Aeneid Book VI

     She said no more. The trembling Trojans hear,

     O'erspread with a damp sweat and holy fear.

   The lawn was still damp so we decided not to sit down.

   The paint is still damp, so please don't touch it.

2. (figuratively) Despondent; dispirited, downcast.
   • 27 July 2016, Jane O’Faherty in The Irish Independent, Monarchs and prison officers win big on second race day

     Though Travis's 'Why does it always Rain on Me' boomed around the stands, there were few damp spirits in Galway on day two of the races.

   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book 1, ll. 522-3:

     All these and more came flocking; but with looks / Down cast and damp.

3. Permitting the possession of alcoholic beverages, but not their sale.

Usage notes

Damp commonly is used for disagreeable conditions and moist often is used for agreeable conditions:

Synonyms

• (in a state between dry and wet): moist, thoan/thone (dialect); see also Thesaurus:wet
• (despondent): glum, melancholy, sorrowful; see also Thesaurus:sad

Derived terms

• dampen
• dampness

Translations

See also

• Appendix:Word formation verb -en noun -ness

Noun

damp (countable and uncountable, plural damps)

1. Moisture; humidity; dampness.
   • c. 1602, William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, Act II, Scene 1,^[1]

     Ere twice in murk and occidental damp

     Moist Hesperus hath quench’d his sleepy lamp,

   • 1764, Elizabeth Griffith, Amana, London: W. Johnston, Act V, p. 49,^[2]

     What means this chilling damp that clings around me!

     Why do I tremble thus!

   • 1848, Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton, Chapter 10,^[3]

     Unceasing, soaking rain was falling; the very lamps seemed obscured by the damp upon the glass, and their light reached but to a little distance from the posts.

   • 1928, Virginia Woolf, Orlando: A Biography, Penguin, 1942, Chapter 5, p. 160,^[4]

     But what was worse, damp now began to make its way into every house—damp, which is the most insidious of all enemies, for while the sun can be shut out by blinds, and the frost roasted by a hot fire, damp steals in while we sleep; damp is silent, imperceptible, ubiquitous.

   • 2005, Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go, London: Faber, 2010, Chapter 10, p. 115,^[5]

     We sometimes kept our Wellingtons on the whole day, leaving trails of mud and damp through the rooms.

2. (archaic) Fog; fogginess; vapor.
   • 1810, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Elizabeth Shelley, “Warrior” in Original Poetry by Victor and Cazire, London: John Lane, 1898, p. 57,^[6]

     Her chilling finger on my head,

     With coldest touch congealed my soul—

     Cold as the finger of the dead,

     Or damps which round a tombstone roll—

   • 1887, Thomas Hardy, The Woodlanders, Chapter 40,^[7]

     Summer was ending: in the daytime singing insects hung in every sunbeam; vegetation was heavy nightly with globes of dew; and after showers creeping damps and twilight chills came up from the hollows.

3. (archaic) Dejection or depression; something that spoils a positive emotion (such as enjoyment, satisfaction, expectation or courage) or a desired activity.
   • 1713, Joseph Addison, Cato, A Tragedy, London: Jacob Tonson, Act III, Scene 1, p. 35,^[8]

     Ev’n now, while thus I stand blest in thy Presence,

     A secret Damp of Grief comes o’er my Thoughts,

   • 1728, George Carleton (attributed to Daniel Defoe), The Memoirs of an English Officer, London: E. Symon, p. 72,^[9]

     But though the War was proclaim’d, and Preparations accordingly made for it, the Expectations from all receiv’d a sudden Damp, by the as sudden Death of King William.

   • 1769, Edmund Burke, Observations on a Late State of the Nation, London: J. Dodsley, p. 33,^[10]

     It is in this spirit that some have looked upon those accidents, that cast an occasional damp upon trade.

   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 50,^[11]

     No sentiment of shame gave a damp to her triumph.

   • 1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Chapter 10,^[12]

     […] Mrs. Gummidge […] , I am sorry to relate, cast a damp upon the festive character of our departure, by immediately bursting into tears […]

   • 1866, James David Forbes, letter to A. Wills dated 2 January, 1866, in Life and Letters of James David Forbes, London: Macmaillan, 1873, p. 429,^[13]

     […] I was concerned to hear from your brother that Mrs. Wills’ health had prevented her accompanying you to Sixt as usual. It must have thrown a damp over your autumn excursion […]

4. (archaic or historical, mining) A gaseous product, formed in coal mines, old wells, pits, etc.
   • 1733, John Arbuthnot, An Essay Concerning the Effects of Air on Human Bodies, London: Jacob Tonson, Chapter 1, p. 19,^[14]

     There are sulphurous Vapours which infect the Vegetables, and render the Grass unwholsom to the Cattle that feed upon it: Miners are often hurt by these Steams. Observations made in some of the Mines in Derbyshire, describe four sorts of those Damps.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

damp (third-person singular simple present damps, present participle damping, simple past and past participle damped)

1. (transitive, archaic) To dampen; to make moderately wet

   Synonym: moisten

2. (transitive, archaic) To put out, as fire; to weaken, restrain, or make dull.
   • 1887, Sir John Lubbock, The Pleasures of Life

     How many a day has been damped and darkened by an angry word!

   • 1857, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit Book 1 Chapter 34

     My Lords, that I am yet to be told that it behoves a Minister of this free country to set bounds to the philanthropy, to cramp the charity, to fetter the public spirit, to contract the enterprise, to damp the independent self-reliance of its people.

   • 1848, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second

     The failure of his enterprise damped the spirit of the soldiers.

   • 1744, Mark Akenside, The Pleasures of the Imagination

     I do not mean to wake the gloomy form Of superstition dress'd in wisdom's garb, To damp your tender hopes

   • 1625, Francis Bacon, Essays, civil and moral

     Usury dulls and damps all industries, improvements, and new inventions, wherein money would be stirring if it were not for this slug

3. (transitive) To suppress vibrations (mechanical) or oscillations (electrical) by converting energy to heat (or some other form of energy).

Translations

Anagrams

• M.D. Pa., MPDA

Danish

Etymology

From German Low German Damp (compare dampen, Dampen n)

Noun

damp c (singular definite dampen, plural indefinite dampe)

1. steam

Inflection

Verb

damp

1. imperative of dampe

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d?mp/
• Hyphenation: damp
• Rhymes: -?mp

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch damp.

Noun

damp m (plural dampen, diminutive dampje n)

1. vapour (UK), vapor (US)

Derived terms

• dampbad
• dampkogel
• dampkring
• dampvormig
• gifdamp
• waterdamp
• zuurdamp
• zwaveldamp

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the main entry.

Verb

damp

1. first-person singular present indicative of dampen
2. imperative of dampen

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology 1

From German Low German Damp (compare dampen, Dampen n)

Noun

damp m (definite singular dampen, indefinite plural damper, definite plural dampene)

1. steam
2. vapour (UK), vapor (US)

Derived terms

Related terms

• dampe

Etymology 2

Verb

damp

1. imperative of dampe

References

• “damp” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From German Low German Damp (compare dampen, Dampen n)

Noun

damp m (definite singular dampen, indefinite plural dampar, definite plural dampane)

1. steam
2. vapour (UK), vapor (US)

Derived terms

Related terms

• dampe

References

• “damp” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Swedish

Verb

damp

1. past tense of dimpa.

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?sta?fl?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?sta?f(?)l/
• Rhymes: -a?f?l
• Hyphenation: stif?le

Etymology 1

The verb is derived from Late Middle English stuflen (“to have difficulty breathing due to heat, stifle; to suffocate by drowning, drown”) [and other forms]; further etymology uncertain, perhaps from stuffen (“to kill by suffocation; to stifle from heat; to extinguish, suppress (body heat, breath, humour, etc.); to deprive a plant of the conditions necessary for growth, choke”) + -el- (derivational infix in verbs, often denoting diminutive, intensive, or repetitive actions or events). Stuffen is derived from Old French estofer, estouffer (“to choke, strangle, suffocate; (figuratively) to inhibit, prevent”) [and other forms] (modern French étouffer), a variant of estoper, estuper (“to block, plug, stop up; to stiffen, thicken”) (modern French étouper (“to caulk”)), influenced by estofer (“to pad, stuff; to upholster”) (modern French étoffer). Estoper is derived from Vulgar Latin *stupp?re, from Latin stuppa (“coarse flax, tow”) (as a stuffing material; from Ancient Greek ????? (stúp?), ?????? (stúpp?) (compare ????????? (stuppeîon)); probably from Pre-Greek) + -?re. According to the Oxford English Dictionary a derivation from Old Norse stífla (“to dam; to choke, stop up”) “appears untenable on the ground both of form and sense”.

The noun is derived from the verb.

Verb

stifle (third-person singular simple present stifles, present participle stifling, simple past and past participle stifled)

1. (transitive, also figuratively) To make (an animal or person) unconscious or cause (an animal or person) death by preventing breathing; to smother, to suffocate.
   • 1708, Jonathan Swift, Accomplishment of the First Prediction

     I took my leave, being half stifled with the closeness of the room.
2. (transitive, hyperbolic) To cause (someone) difficulty in breathing, or a choking or gagging feeling.

3. (transitive, also figuratively) To prevent (a breath, cough, or cry, or the voice, etc.) from being released from the throat.
4. (transitive) To make (something) unable to be heard by blocking it with some medium.
5. (transitive, figuratively)
   1. (transitive) To keep in, hold back, or repress (something).

      Synonyms: hinder, restrain, smother, suppress, throttle

      • 1723, Daniel Waterland, A Second Vindication of Christ's Divinity

        I desire only to have things fairly represented as they really are; no evidence smothered or stifled.
   2. (transitive) To prevent (something) from being revealed; to conceal, to hide, to suppress.
6. (transitive, agriculture (sericulture)) To treat (a silkworm cocoon) with steam as part of the process of silk production.
7. (intransitive) To die of suffocation.

8. (intransitive, hyperbolic) To feel smothered; to find it difficult to breathe.

Conjugation

Alternative forms

• stifil (obsolete, 16th c.)

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• Thesaurus:die

Noun

stifle (plural stifles)

1. (rare) An act or state of being stifled.

Translations

Etymology 2

The noun is derived from Middle English stifle (“joint between the femur and tibia of a quadruped”) [and other forms]; further etymology uncertain, probably derived from Anglo-Norman estive (“leg”), and Old French estive (“leg”) (compare Old French estival (“boot, shoe”)).

The verb is derived from the noun.

Noun

stifle (plural stifles)

1. (zootomy) The joint between the femur and tibia in the hind leg of various four-legged mammals, especially horses, corresponding to the knee in humans.

   Synonym: stifle joint

2. (veterinary medicine) A bone disease of this region.

Derived terms

• stifle bone
• stifle joint

Translations

Verb

stifle (third-person singular simple present stifles, present participle stifling, simple past and past participle stifled)

1. (transitive) To cause (a dog, horse, or other four-legged mammal) to dislocate or sprain its stifle joint.

Derived terms

• stifling (noun)

Translations

Notes

References

Further reading

• asphyxia on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• stifle joint on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “stifle”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• filets, fistle, fliest, flites, itself