damper

Something that damps or checks:; A valve or movable plate in the flue or other part of a stove, furnace, etc., used to check or regulate the draught of air.countableuncountable

Something that damps or checks:; A contrivance (sordine), as in a pianoforte, to deaden vibrations; or, as in other pieces of mechanism, to check some action at a particular time.countableuncountable

Something that damps or checks:; Something that kills the mood.countableuncountable

• Nor did Sabrina′s presence seem to act as any damper at the modest little festivities.

Something that damps or checks:; A device that decreases the oscillations of a system.countableuncountable

• Figure 7.13 shows stability diagrams that illustrate the effect of the magnitude of the damping coefficient of the damper on the flutter of the pipe.

Something that damps or checks:; A shock absorber.countableuncountable

• In general, steel springs were stipulated for primary suspension, although rubber was accepted for auxiliary springing; hydraulic dampers were specified and the use of laminated springs ruled out.
• However, complaints quickly surfaced about the ride quality of the SIG BT41 bogies, which was only cured by the fitting of additional dampers to the bogies and couplers.

Bread made from a basic recipe of flour, water, milk, and salt, but without yeast.AustraliaNew-Zealandcountable

• 1827, Peter Cunningham, Two Years in New South Wales, ii.190, quoted in G. A. Wilkes, A Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms, 1978, →ISBN, The farm-men usually bake their flour into flat cakes, which they call dampers, and cook these in

A shop till.UKcountableobsolete

• A certain class of 'City Arabs' do nothing but steal provisions from shop doors and sell them for one-tenth of their value, or less, […] while a fourth again do nothing but "draw the dampers," i. e. steal from shop-tills.

comparative form of damp: more dampcomparativeform-of