nerf

Trademark.

1. the brand name of various toys modeled especially on sports equipment but made of foam rubber or other soft substances.

verb (used with object)

2. (lowercase) Slang. (in a video game) to reconfigure (an existing character or weapon), making it less powerful: The game development team nerfed several guns in the recent update.

1955, in nerf bars, hot-rodder slang for “custom bumpers;” from slang verb in auto racing (1953) meaning “to nudge something with a bumper in passing and knock it off course;” ultimate origin and signification unknown. As a trademark name for toys made of foam-like material for indoor play, introduced 1970 (Nerf ball). By 1995 this had yielded a verbal sense of “to make less effective” (as a Nerf basketball is softer and lighter than the real thing).