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.