repress
Americanverb (used with object)
-
to keep under control, check, or suppress (desires, feelings, actions, tears, etc.).
- Antonyms:
- foster
-
to keep down or suppress (anything objectionable).
- Antonyms:
- foster
-
to put down or quell (sedition, disorder, etc.).
- Antonyms:
- foster
-
to reduce (persons) to subjection.
- Synonyms:
- crush
- Antonyms:
- foster
-
Psychology, Psychoanalysis. to reject (painful or disagreeable ideas, memories, feelings, or impulses) from the conscious mind.
verb (used without object)
verb
-
to keep (feelings, etc) under control; suppress or restrain
to repress a desire
-
to put into a state of subjugation
to repress a people
-
psychoanal to banish (thoughts and impulses that conflict with conventional standards of conduct) from one's conscious mind
Related Words
See check 1.
Other Word Forms
- nonrepressible adjective
- nonrepressibleness noun
- nonrepressibly adverb
- overrepress verb (used with object)
- represser noun
- repressible adjective
- unrepressible adjective
Etymology
Origin of repress
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English repressen, from Latin repressus (past participle of reprimere ), equivalent to re- re- + pressus, past participle of premere “to exert steady force against, apply pressure to, press”; press 1
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.
But seeing the show, in which two athletes enter a loving relationship, stirred repressed feelings.
From BBC
By convention, a Shiite Muslim has been prime minister since the fall of Saddam, who ruthlessly repressed the Shiite majority in Iraq.
From Barron's
Author and psychotherapist Jennifer Cox told Radio 4 Woman's Hour she believes women are "conditioned" to repress feelings of "frustration, anger, aggression and rage".
From BBC
Among white Americans are committed segregationists who will repress regardless—and others who are uneasy about repression but uncertain about protesters’ aims.
The critic James Wood decried Mr. Barnes as “a thoroughly English writer,” meaning that he is clever and pedantic and emotionally repressed.
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.
