suppressing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of suppress.

   Suppressing the evidence, the official hoped the scandal would fade.

   The regime spent decades suppressing any criticism in the press.

   Note

   The -ing form does double duty. After be it is a participle (the regime was suppressing dissent). After a preposition it is a gerund, as when Gary Younge wrote in The Guardian in 2013 of the west's "collusion in suppressing freedom." It carries every meaning of suppress, from stifling a laugh to stopping a flow. In US law, suppressing evidence means barring it from trial, not hiding it.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act by which something is held down, stopped, or kept from being known or expressed.

   The suppressing of the rebellion required thousands of troops and months of effort.

   Years of suppressing his ambitions eventually wore him down.

   Similarrepression, crushing, quelling, stifling

   Note

   Here the -ing word has become a full noun. Unlike the verbal gerund, it takes the and an of-phrase (the suppressing of the rebellion) and can even be pluralized as suppressings. The gerund takes a direct object instead: suppressing the rebellion. Suppression says the same thing more compactly, while the -ing noun keeps more of the feel of an action under way.

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