suppress
Formssuppresses, suppressing, suppressed
- 1To put an end to something forcefully: crushing, subduing, or prohibiting it.
The regime moved quickly to suppress any sign of dissent.
Colonial authorities suppressed the uprising with brutal force.
Note
Political force is the usual arena for a word whose Latin root pictured pressing something under: supprimō, from sub "under" and premō "press". What is suppressed is held down by greater power, such as dissent, a revolt or a practice. Abolish and eliminate stress the ending, and clamp down stresses the force. Suppress carries both, and it pairs naturally with adverbs of force, as in brutally suppressed.
- 2
- 3To deliberately exclude unwanted or painful thoughts from one's conscious mind.
Patients often suppress traumatic memories to cope with daily life.
He consciously suppressed thoughts of failure before the interview.
Note
A clinical term with a distinction worth knowing. In psychology it names the deliberate pushing of distressing thoughts or memories out of awareness, while repression is kept for the process held to work unconsciously. Ordinary English is looser: "he unconsciously suppressed his memories" sounds perfectly natural. So in a psychological text, check which of the two the writer intends.
- 4
- 5To stop or hold back a flow or stream of something so it no longer continues.
Firm pressure on the wound helped suppress the bleeding.
The valve suppressed the flow of water into the tank.
Note
Anything that flows can be stopped this way: oil from a well, water through a pipe, blood from a wound. The sense also stretches to bodily reflexes, so honey and hot juice may suppress a cough. Stem, stanch and dam suit literal streams. Suppress is the wider word, and it is the one that carries over to coughs and similar urges.
- 6To stop or prevent the enemy from firing, regrouping, or observing during combat.
The platoon used heavy fire to suppress the enemy gunners.
Artillery suppressed the enemy trenches while the infantry advanced.
Note
Military usage aims at stopping, not destroying. Suppressive fire forces defenders to stay under cover, so they cannot shoot back, regroup or observe while friendly troops move. That makes it narrower than the sense of crushing opposition. The object can be the enemy, a weapon crew or a position, as when artillery suppresses the trenches during an advance.
- 7To bar evidence from being used at trial because it is improper or was improperly obtained.
Defense lawyers asked the judge to suppress the illegally seized documents.
The court suppressed the confession because police ignored the suspect's rights.
Similarexclude
Oppositeadmit
Note
A term of American courtroom practice: a judge suppresses evidence by ordering that it not be used at trial. The usual reason is that it was obtained in violation of a defendant's constitutional rights, as through an unlawful search or seizure. The evidence is not destroyed, only kept out of the trial. That is quite different from suppressing a publication, where concealment is the point.
- 8To reduce unwanted frequencies in an electrical signal so the desired part comes through clearly.
A low-pass filter can suppress high-frequency noise in the audio signal.
The new design suppressed unwanted harmonics across the band.
Similarattenuate, reduce, filter
Note
Engineering keeps this sense narrow. What is suppressed is one component of a signal, such as noise, interference or unwanted harmonics, while the frequencies of interest pass through, usually by way of a filter. Its near-synonym attenuate describes the reduction itself. Suppress names the purpose, which is getting rid of what is not wanted.
Less common meaning
- 9To hold something firmly in place, keeping it pressed down or low to the ground.
Note
The most literal sense, and now out of use: holding a thing physically down, close to the Latin "press under" told at the sense of crushing by force. Nothing of it survives in current English. A reader meeting it in an older text about something kept low should read it spatially, not as a figure of restraint.
Practice
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Origin
From Latin suppressus, the perfect passive participle of supprimō ("press down or under"), formed from sub ("under") plus premō ("press").