Definition of "stifle"

(transitive, also figuratively) To make (an animal or person) unconscious or cause (an animal or person) death by preventing breathing; to smother, to suffocate.  quotations  examples

(transitive, hyperbolic) To cause (someone) difficulty in breathing, or a choking or gagging feeling.  examples

(transitive, also figuratively) To prevent (a breath, cough, or cry, or the voice, etc.) from being released from the throat.  examples

(transitive) To make (something) unable to be heard by blocking it with some medium.  examples

(transitive, figuratively)

1. (transitive) To keep in, hold back, or repress (something).  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • I desire only to have things fairly represented as they really are; no evidence smothered or stifled.

     1723, Daniel Waterland, A Second Vindication of Christ's Divinity

   • Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collar galled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as uncomfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells.

     1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company

   • In fact, there was no suggestion of that, although Wolves deployed men behind the ball to stifle the league leaders in a first-half that proved very frustrating for City.

     2011 October 29, Neil Johnston, “Norwich 3-3 Blackburn”, in BBC Sport

2. (transitive) To prevent (something) from being revealed; to conceal, to hide, to suppress.  examples

(transitive, agriculture (sericulture)) To treat (a silkworm cocoon) with steam as part of the process of silk production.  examples

(intransitive) To die of suffocation.  examples

(intransitive, hyperbolic) To feel smothered; to find it difficult to breathe.  examples

(rare) An act or state of being stifled.

(zootomy) The joint between the femur and tibia in the hind leg of various four-legged mammals, especially horses, corresponding to the knee in humans.  examples

(veterinary medicine) A bone disease of this region.  examples

(transitive) To cause (a dog, horse, or other four-legged mammal) to dislocate or sprain its stifle joint.  examples