All 7 Uses of

stifle
in
The Brothers Karamazov

To sink into debauchery, to stifle your soul with corruption, yes?†
Chpt 5

stifle = suppress (prevent something or decrease its development)

Bent forward, with her head and arms on the bed close by, she was crying bitterly, doing her utmost to stifle her sobs that she might not be heard.†
Chpt 8

His passion might well, for a moment, stifle not only the fear of arrest, but even the torments of conscience.†
Chpt 12 *

Then, after describing his journey to see Lyagavy, the night spent in the stifling hut, and so on, he came to his return to the town.†
Chpt 9 *

And often, especially after leading him round the room on his arm and putting him back to bed, he would run to a dark corner in the passage and, leaning his head against the wall, he would break into paroxysms of violent weeping, stifling his sobs that they might not be heard by Ilusha.†
Chpt 10

The court usher took the document she held out to the President, and she, dropping into her chair, hiding her face in her hands, began convulsively and noiselessly sobbing, shaking all over, and stifling every sound for fear she should be ejected from the court.†
Chpt 12

Definitions:

(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).