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Another word for smother

a-z
Verb

  1. To stop the breathing of

      1. To become or feel oppressed; be stifled.
      2. To be unable to develop properly as because of a repressive or dulling environment
      3. To be unable to breathe freely; choke; stifle; smother
      1. To interrupt or cut off (the voice, for example).
      2. To suppress or repress; hold back; check, stop, inhibit, etc.
      3. To kill by preventing respiration; smother or suffocate.
      1. To fail to perform effectively because of nervous agitation or tension, especially in an athletic contest:
      2. To prevent from breathing by blocking the windpipe; suffocate; smother; stifle; often, specif., to prevent from breathing by squeezing the throat of; strangle
      3. To hinder or check, as growth, expansion, progress, etc.; to stifle.
      1. To undergo asphyxia; suffocate.
      2. To cause asphyxia in; smother.
      3. To suffocate
    See also:

    breath

  2. To hold (something requiring an outlet) in check

      1. To lessen the speed of (an engine, vehicle, etc.) by this or similar means; slow (down)
      2. To suppress:
      3. To stop the utterance or action of; censor or suppress
      1. To put down by force; subdue; quell; crush
      2. To curtail or inhibit the activity of something, such as the immune system or a gene.
      3. To restrain the growth, activity, or release of:
      1. To kill by squeezing the throat so as to choke or suffocate; throttle.
      2. To kill by squeezing the throat as with the hands, a noose, etc., so as to shut off the breath; throttle; choke
      3. To suppress, repress, or stifle:
      1. To kill by preventing respiration; smother or suffocate.
      2. To interrupt or cut off (the voice, for example).
      3. To suppress or repress; hold back; check, stop, inhibit, etc.
      1. (Archaic) To crush by trampling.
      2. To produce a splashing, squishing, or sucking sound, as when walking through ooze.
      3. To suppress or silence completely and with a crushing effect
      1. To control so strictly or severely as to prevent the natural development or expression of
      2. To hold back or prevent by an act of volition:
      3. To put down or subdue by force:
      1. To cool (hot steel, etc.) suddenly by plunging into water, oil, or the like
      2. To put out (a fire, for example); extinguish.
      3. To overcome; subdue; suppress
      1. To deaden (a sound), as by wrapping
      2. To wrap or cover in order to deaden or prevent sound
      3. To repress; stifle.
      1. To be or become silent or still.
      2. To stop making noise; be or become quiet or silent
      3. To keep from public knowledge; suppress mention of. Often used with up :
      1. (Idiomatic) To continue, to hold and to manage well.
      2. (Idiomatic) To restrain; to check.
      1. (Idiomatic) to delay, especially in school
      2. (Idiomatic) to contain; stop
      1. To prevent or limit speech in (a legislative body)
      2. To experience a regurgitative spasm in the throat, as from revulsion to a food or smell or in reflexive response to an introduced object.
      3. (Mech.) To choke or stop up (a valve, etc.)
      1. To affect with a sense of strangulation by passion or strong feeling.
      2. To become strained with emotion
      3. (Informal) To be unable to perform efficiently, as in a sporting event, because of tension, strong emotion, etc.
      1. To avoid; disregard:
      2. To get rid of quietly; evade or suppress, as a parliamentary bill, discussion, etc.
      3. (Obs.) To murder by suffocating so as to leave the body unmarked and fit to be sold for dissection
    See also:

    restraint

© Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Cleveland, Ohio. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Another word for smother

Verb
      1. To inhibit the expression of:
      2. To inhibit the expression of (a gene):
      3. To restrain the growth, activity, or release of:
      1. To be unable to breathe freely; choke; stifle; smother
      2. To suppress the development, imagination, or creativity of; stifle:
      3. To be unable to develop properly as because of a repressive or dulling environment
      1. To interrupt or cut off (the voice, for example).
      2. To suppress or repress; hold back; check, stop, inhibit, etc.
      3. To kill by preventing respiration; smother or suffocate.
    See also:

    extinguish

    choke

© WEBSTER’S NEW WORLD® ROGET’S A-Z THESAURUS by Charlton Laird and the editors of Webster’s New World dictionaries. Copyright © 1999 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Sentence Examples

  • All hints of hesitation left the young girl in the wake of the smother of love that enveloped her.

  • Cynthia, who'd followed the men to the door, was the first to smother the young girl in hugs and kisses, and an ample dose of tears with the others joining in with equal enthusiasm.

  • In English th represents both the unvoiced sound J as in thin, &c., and the voiced sound 5, which is found initially only in pronominal words like this, that, there, then, those, is commonest medially as in father, bother, smother, either, and is found also finally in words like with (the preposition), both.

  • In a third place a crowd of bees, crushing one another, attack some victim and fight and smother it, and the victim, enfeebled or killed, drops from above slowly and lightly as a feather, among the heap of corpses.

  • On the plus side, many think that Bad Santa, and especially Thornton, displays a side of Christmas that some don't want to admit to: the greedy, commercialized version that often seems to smother the more delicate meaning.

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Words that mention smother in the Dictionary

Words near smother in the Thesaurus