The phenomenon that occurs when a powerful descriptive word becomes popular and then loses its power though repetition and incorrect use. The word awesome was once reserved for sights like the Niagara Falls and accomplishments like climbing Mt. Everest, but now it can be appropriately used to describe a really good sandwich. Word deflation ultimately requires using or inventing an even more powerful descriptive word to gain the previous effect of the now deflated word. A car crash must be horrific if taking a really long time to find a parking spot is horrible.
I knew the word epic had suffered major word deflation when Kaylen used it to describe the results of his last trip to the bathroom.
by Topper 7770 July 3, 2011