damp

1. (archaic) Fog; fogginess; vapor.Examples: "Night […] with black air / Accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom."; "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—"; "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."archaiccountableuncountable

2. (archaic) Dejection or depression; something that spoils a positive emotion (such as enjoyment, satisfaction, expectation or courage) or a desired activity.Examples: "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, 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."; "It is in this ſpirit that ſome have looked upon thoſe accidents, that caſt an occaſional damp upon trade."archaiccountableuncountable

3. (mining, archaic or historical) A gaseous product, formed in coal mines, old wells, pits, etc.Examples: "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."archaiccountablehistoricaluncountable

1. (transitive) To suppress vibrations (mechanical) or oscillations (electrical) by converting energy to heat (or some other form of energy).Examples: "Hydraulic shock absorbers are used to damp out vertical and lateral oscillations."transitive

2. (transitive, archaic) To dampen; to make moderately wet.Examples: "to damp cloth"; "It just damps a bit, but it een't not to sey reen."Synonyms: moistenarchaictransitive

3. (transitive, archaic) To put out, as fire; to weaken, restrain, or make dull.Examples: "How many a day has been damped and darkened by an angry word!"; "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."; "The failure of his enterprise damped the spirit of the soldiers."archaictransitive

1. (immunology) Initialism of damage-associated molecular pattern.abbreviationalt-ofcountableinitialismuncountable

2. (psychiatry) Acronym of deficits in attention, motor control and perception.abbreviationacronymalt-ofcountableuncountable