Definition of "repress" []

• To hold back by an act of volition: couldn't repress a smirk. (verb-transitive)
• To put down by force, usually before total control has been lost; quell: repress a rebellion. (verb-transitive)
• Psychology To exclude (painful or disturbing memories, for example) automatically or unconsciously from the conscious mind. (verb-transitive)
• Biology To block (transcription of a gene) by combination of a protein to an operator gene. (verb-transitive)
• To take repressive action. (verb-intransitive)

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.

• "Inebriation, if not the wisest way to console and repress, is at least an opportune way to live with the knowledge that it is impossible to win affection."
• "Selling ideology not to inspire, but to repress is his main game, and he is quite good at it."
• "The groans, impossible to repress, that issued through the lips of"