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Definition of "inhibition" []

  • The act of inhibiting or the state of being inhibited. (noun)
  • Something that restrains, blocks, or suppresses. (noun)
  • Psychology Conscious or unconscious restraint of a behavioral process, a desire, or an impulse. (noun)
  • Chemistry The condition in which or the process by which a reaction is inhibited. (noun)
  • Biology The condition in which or the process by which an enzyme, for example, is inhibited. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "inhibition" in a sentence
  • "II. ii.346 (217,9) I think, their inhibition comes by the means of the late innovation] I fancy this is transposed: Hamlet enquires not about an _inhibition_, but an _innovation_; the answer therefore probably was,"
  • "But if we abstract from any such implication, and conceive of such force as the term inhibition seems to connote, as restricted to the associated neural or physiological processes, no unwarranted assumptions need be imported by the term into the facts, and the definition may, perhaps, suffice."
  • "My only inhibition is how little I know the answer myself."