single word requests - Antonym of "deepen"


Since there is no word "shallowen", is there a good antonym of "deepen"? The meaning of "deepen" that I am referring to here is "to cause to become deeper." It doesn't necessarily refer to digging a hole. For example, a temporary deformation in a soft surface:



Putting the anvil on the mattress deepens the depression in it, but removing the anvil ______ it.



I would also be happy with an antonym of the intransitive version "to become deeper."



Answer



Shallow can be used as a transitive or intransitive verb (who knew!).


To be honest, I haven't heard it used very often (I would normally say that something was shallow, not that it shallowed), but it doesn't sound very strange to me either.


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