1 [VN] to prevent sth from happening; to prevent a feeling from being expressed:
She managed to stifle a yawn. * to stifle a cry / giggle * They hope the new rules will not stifle creativity. * The government failed to stifle the unrest.
2 to feel unable to breathe, or to make sb unable to breathe, because it is too hot and/or there is no fresh air:
[V] I felt I was stifling in the airless room. * [VN] Most of the victims were stifled by the fumes.
stifling adjective:
a stifling smell / room * 'It's stifling in here-can we open a window?' * At 25, she found family life stifling.
stiflingly adverb:
The room was stiflingly hot.
Rate this entry
About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for stifle is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is stifle a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, stifle is tagged as verb.
Does stifle appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — stifle appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
