One way to hold deflate: something is packed tight and standing up full, and then a plug comes out. The air runs away, the walls fall in, and what is left is the same thing, only smaller, softer and flatter. Nothing breaks and nothing leaves the room. Every use of the word is that one picture with a different thing inside it — a tyre, a person's confidence, a big-sounding claim, the money moving through a country.
From the word’s history
Wiktionary records deflate as coined in 1891, about balloons, from de- (away) plus Latin flō (blow) plus -ate. So the oldest use is literally taking away what was blown in — which is exactly the picture the later uses reuse.
維基詞典記載 deflate 是 1891 年造出來的字，一開始講的就是氣球：de-（去掉、拿走）加上拉丁文 flō（吹）再加 -ate。字面意思就是「把吹進去的東西拿走」，後來的每一個用法都借用同一個畫面。
Wiktionary entry for deflate (kaikki extract, source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:542560532:16067): From de- + (in)flate. Coined in 1891, in reference to balloons.
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。