stifled
Americanadjective
-
quelled, crushed, or ended by force.
The activist has been in and out of detention as she continues to call attention to her country's stifled uprising.
-
suppressed, repressed, or inhibited.
My foot slipped, and with a stifled shriek I found myself grasping desperately for a handhold.
One version of me grew up as expected, appearing as a confident adult to the outside world; the other remained a stifled, insecure child.
-
deprived of air or of the ability to breathe.
The light is mixed with the dust floating in the stifled hut, where the air inside never moves.
When I see that picture of the stifled refugees hidden in the van, I don’t understand the heartlessness that permits such a thing.
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of stifled
Explanation
Stifled is an adjective for anything that's been squashed or smothered. You might have a stifled ambition to be an astronaut that you never admitted to others. Something stifled is stunted, or prevented from growing. If your mother never let you read books or climb trees, your childhood curiosity might have been stifled. Perhaps your career was stifled because you were constantly daydreaming about being an astronaut, and so failed to do your job well.
Vocabulary lists containing stifled
A Wrinkle in Time
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Vocabulary from the Vice-Presidential Debate, October 4, 2016
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The Double Helix
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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.
Ron spasms under his desk, stifled by the small space; a colleague dries a co-worker’s hair with a piece of paper after blowing bubbles in it; Ron does the loudest meal prep you’ll ever hear.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026
“My Neighbor Totoro” is a gateway into a pastoral ideal that still exists in living memory, reviving parts of our imagination that maturity has stifled into dormancy.
From Salon ● Jul. 15, 2026
Ishan Kishan made 49, Abhishek Sharma 43 and Shreyas Iyer 37, but India were stifled by tight bowling from Jacks and Sam Curran, the latter claiming 3-33.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026
She pushed Joint into corners, held off several break points, and stifled a match point in the tiebreak before taking it for herself.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026
Alton Massey, one of the football players that had just signed out, stifled a grin.
From "The Parker Inheritance" by Varian Johnson
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.
