The gradual reducing of a motion's swing. Damping is what stops a thing oscillating forever.
Middle Low German damp (vapor, smoke, suffocating air), extended in English to the sense of checking or smothering a fire; the gradual reducing of a motion's swing, borrowed from the sense of smothering something down.
The gradual reducing of a motion's swing. It is what stops a thing oscillating forever, the same smothering sense that once meant putting a fire down.