"deflate" means: To reduce the amount of available currency or credit and thus lower prices.. This is a fairly neutral word with no inherent risk attached. There is no real cause for parental concern; it is descriptive vocabulary rather than something dangerous. If your child uses it, context will usually make the meaning clear. A brief, curious question about where they heard it is generally enough to know whether to follow up.
deflate
(transitive, economics) To reduce the amount of available currency or credit and thus lower prices.
Etymology timeline
Born ~1891 · 1 year of recorded useSeen in the wild
"Humor endows us with the capacity the clarify the obscure, the simplify the complex, to deflate the pompous, the chastise the arrogant. to point a moral, and to adorn a tale." John T. McCutcheon, born on this day in…
i ponder of something great, my lungs will fill and then deflate.
If as a society, we actually acknowledge the vulnerability of transmasculine people as well as actually see trans men as defining manhood as much as cis men, that would completely deflate the patriarchal drive to for…
Tfw you're burping your baby and she lets out a burp so massive that you can feel her entire body deflate
Definitions
(transitive, economics) To reduce the amount of available currency or credit and thus lower prices.
"deflate" means: To reduce the amount of available currency or credit and thus lower prices.. This is a fairly neutral word with no inherent risk attached. There is no real cause for parental concern; it is descriptive vocabulary rather than something dangerous. If your child uses it, context will usually make the meaning clear. A brief, curious question about where they heard it is generally enough to know whether to follow up.
"deflate" means: To reduce the amount of available currency or credit and thus lower prices.. Register: neutral, standard English, usable in most everyday contexts. A common non-native mistake is to use the word in the wrong register, or to assume one fixed meaning when it is actually polysemous; always check the surrounding register and the audience before producing it yourself. In formal writing, prefer a neutral synonym or a short descriptive phrase, and use this word only when you have heard or read it being used naturally in a comparable context.
“i ponder of something great, my lungs will fill and then deflate.”
— Bluesky· May 2026
Comments
(transitive) To remove air or some other gas from within an elastic container, e.g. a balloon or tyre.
deflate someone's ego
Comments
(transitive) To cause an object to decrease or become smaller in some parameter, e.g. to shrink.
“"Humor endows us with the capacity the clarify the obscure, the simplify the complex, to deflate the pompous, the chastise the arrogant. to point a moral, and to adorn a tale." John T. McCutcheon, born on this day in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, in 1870”
— Bluesky· May 2026“If as a society, we actually acknowledge the vulnerability of transmasculine people as well as actually see trans men as defining manhood as much as cis men, that would completely deflate the patriarchal drive to force manhood as power and is so dangerous to be unnameable.”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Tfw you're burping your baby and she lets out a burp so massive that you can feel her entire body deflate”
— Bluesky· May 2026
Comments
For specific readers
Why is this section here?
Slang is read by different audiences for very different reasons. The For parents view re-explains the term in plain, non-judgemental language so a caregiver can understand what their child means without needing the surrounding subculture. The For English learners view focuses on register (when it's safe to use), formal alternatives, and common mistakes — what a textbook won't teach you.
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Other words near "deflate" (D)
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