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

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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]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

bottle up

He could throw down a dunk, hit a 3-pointer, snare a crucial rebound and bottle up the other team’s best scorer, all in the same game.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026

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

From Barron's ● Nov. 2, 2025

We lost and were gutted, but we had to park it and bottle up that feeling of disappointment and use it as added fuel.

From BBC ● Jul. 8, 2025

So Washington State’s challenge, among others, will be to find a way to do both — to bottle up the run and contain the pass.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 8, 2023

Hamilton had drifted off about twenty yards so I just backed up a few steps, held the bottle up over my head and screamed as I ran and jumped.

From "Hole in My Life" by Jack Gantos

Related Words

• repress
• suppress