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Synonyms

bottle up

British  

verb

  1. to restrain (powerful emotion)

  2. to keep (an army or other force) contained or trapped

    the French fleet was bottled up in Le Havre
"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
bottle up Idioms  

  1. Repress, contain, hold back; also, confine or trap. For example, The psychiatrist said Eve had been bottling up her anger for years, or The accident bottled up traffic for miles. This idiom likens other kinds of restraint to liquid being contained in a bottle. [Mid-1800s]

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

So the establishment decided to bottle up the flavours of its "fermentation lab" and "test kitchen".

From Barron's • Nov. 2, 2025

With suicide the biggest killer of men under 50 in the UK, a new film explores why many men still bottle up their emotions, and asks whether such ingrained, systemic behaviour can be changed.

From BBC • Jun. 13, 2024

It would create a sweeping system intended to bottle up illegal immigration.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 19, 2024

If you could bottle up Geneva sunshine and turn it into music, it’d probably sound a lot like Varnish.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 19, 2023

Takumi tilted the bottle up and swallowed a few times, then handed it to me.

From "Looking for Alaska" by John Green

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.