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

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

FAA regulations and reliance on “self-reporting” create a culture in which pilots bottle up their problems instead of reporting them and seeking help, advocates say.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 27, 2023

She held the mouth of the bottle up to her ear and grinned at me.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

Related Words

• repress
• suppress