All 5 Uses of
stifle
in
Gulliver's Travels
- The plots, in that kingdom, are usually the workmanship of those persons who desire to raise their own characters of profound politicians; to restore new vigour to a crazy administration; to stifle or divert general discontents; to fill their coffers with forfeitures; and raise, or sink the opinion of public credit, as either shall best answer their private advantage.†
Chpt 3stifle = suppress (prevent something or decrease its development)
- Sometimes the ambition of princes, who never think they have land or people enough to govern; sometimes the corruption of ministers, who engage their master in a war, in order to stifle or divert the clamour of the subjects against their evil administration.†
Chpt 4 *
- I might easily have stifled it with my coat, which I unfortunately left behind me for haste, and came away only in my leathern jerkin.†
Chpt 1
- I got with much difficulty out of my hammock, having first ventured to draw back the slip-board on the roof already mentioned, contrived on purpose to let in air, for want of which I found myself almost stifled.†
Chpt 2
- Several of this cursed brood, getting hold of the branches behind, leaped up into the tree, whence they began to discharge their excrements on my head; however, I escaped pretty well by sticking close to the stem of the tree, but was almost stifled with the filth, which fell about me on every side.†
Chpt 4
Definitions:
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(1)
(stifle as in: stifling the urge) to suppress (prevent something or decrease its development) -- often political freedom
-
(2)
(stifle as in: the heat is stifling) to make breathing difficult or impossible -- often from heat or humidity
-
(3)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Much more rarely, to stifle is used in the context of anatomy to refer to a four-legged animal's equivalent of the human knee (the joint between the upper and lower leg).