Sample Sentences for
stifle
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

stifle as in:  stifling the urge

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These excessive rules that stifle creativity.
stifle = suppress (prevent something or decrease its development)
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    The authorities cracked down in an attempt to stifle dissent.
    stifle = suppress (prevent something or decrease its development)
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    The book is so boring, it stifles whatever curiosity students bring to the class.
    stifles = suppresses
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    It is a stifling police state.
    stifling = making it difficult for people to express themselves freely
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Show 10 more with 6 word variations
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    I stifled my laugh.
    stifled = suppressed
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    Atticus tried to stifle a smile but didn't make it.  (source)
    stifle = suppress (prevent)
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    When I finally regain enough sense, I roll the leg back and forth on the ground, which stifles the worst of it.  (source)
    stifles = suppresses
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    The bus wasn't air-conditioned, and the hot, heavy air was almost as stifling as the handcuffs.  (source)
    stifling = suppressing or constraining (preventing something from happening)
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    The air was stiflingly hot, and the flies buzzed in the shade of the canvas.†  (source)
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    the scholar, the wrong 'd made right, The call of the slave is one with the master's call, and the master salutes the slave, The felon steps forth from the prison, the insane becomes sane, the suffering of sick persons is reliev'd, The sweatings and fevers stop, the throat that was unsound is sound, the lungs of the consumptive are resumed, the poor distress'd head is free, The joints of the rheumatic move as smoothly as ever, and smoother than ever, Stiflings and passages open, the paralyzed become supple, The swell'd and convuls'd and congested awake to themselves in condition, They pass the invigoration of the night and the chemistry of the night, and awake.†  (source)
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    She ached with her own stifled protests.  (source)
    stifled = suppressed (held back)
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    Mother can barely stifle a laugh, and I stare straight ahead.  (source)
    stifle = suppress (prevent)
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    Her brother, Ptolemus, even stifles a yawn.†  (source)
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    He leaned in toward me, seemingly incapable of stifling the smile.  (source)
    stifling = suppressing (preventing something from developing)
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stifle as in:  the heat is stifling

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It was a hot, humid, stifling day.
stifling = making it difficult to breath
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    The heat and humidity are stifling.
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    Her perfume was stifling.
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    The atmosphere is stifling, sluggish, leaden.  (source)
    stifling = (figuratively) making breathing difficult
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Show 10 more with 3 word variations
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    Together they climbed the ladder into the dim, stifling tower room.  (source)
    stifling = making breathing more difficult or impossible; or so hot and humid that breathing is more difficult
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    And she was stooped and seemed to be finding it hard to breathe, as if the air of that place stifled her.  (source)
    stifled = made breathing difficult
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    Home, home–a few small rooms, stiflingly over-inhabited by a man, by a periodically teeming woman, by a rabble of boys and girls of all ages.  (source)
    stiflingly = uncomfortable (figuratively, making breathing difficult)
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    Even across the gym, it seemed she could smell his stifling cologne.  (source)
    stifling = making breathing more difficult
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    The disc of the sun was dull silver as though it were nearer and not so hot, yet the air stifled.  (source)
    stifled = made breathing difficult
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    It was stiflingly warm, and the fire that was burning under the crowded mantelpiece was giving off a heavy, sickly sort of perfume as it heated a large copper kettle.  (source)
    stiflingly = in a way that makes breathing difficult
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    I didn't know if it was the emptiness, the stifling heat, or the fact it was only nine o'clock, but I couldn't settle into sleep despite how tired I was.  (source)
    stifling = making breathing more difficult
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    It was as if a window were thrown open, admitting a freer atmosphere into the close and stifled study, where his life was wasting itself away, amid lamp-light, or obstructed day-beams, and the musty fragrance, be it sensual or moral, that exhales from books.  (source)
    stifled = stuffy (lacking fresh air that makes breathing easier)
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    Sweating profusely day and night, training in the sun, unable to sleep in stifling hotel rooms and YMCAs, lacking any appetite, virtually every athlete lost a huge amount of weight.  (source)
    stifling = making breathing difficult -- typically due to heat and humidity
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    Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in, And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?  (source)
    stifled = suffocated
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meaning too rare to warrant focus

Show 1 with this contextual meaning
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Swiss Bible paper, famed for its creaminess and opacity despite its thinness, had taken months to be made to order, its slurry stifling nearby rivers, and then shipped to the Hong Kong port, where someone from our Hong Kong office picked the rolls up and delivered them across the mainland China border to Phoenix Sun and Moon Ltd. in Shenzhen.  (source)
stifling = making breathing more difficult or impossible; or so hot and humid that breathing is more difficult
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