stifle

verb

1. (also, figuratively, transitive)To make (an animal or person) unconscious or cause (an animal or person) to die by preventing breathing; to smother, to suffocate.

   “I took my leave, being half stifled with the closeness of the room.”

   “And while her Hand the ſtreaming Blood oppos'd; / Join'd Face to Face, his Lips with hers ſhe clos'd. / Stifled with Kiſſes, a ſweet Death he dies; / She fills the Fields with undiſtinguiſh'd Cries: [...]”

2. (excessive, transitive)To cause (someone) difficulty in breathing, or a choking or gagging feeling.

   “The heat was stifling the children.”

3. (also, figuratively, transitive)To prevent (a breath, cough, or cry, or the voice, etc.) from being released from the throat.
4. (transitive)To make (something) unable to be heard by blocking it with some medium.
5. (figuratively, transitive)To keep in, hold back, or repress (something).

   “The army stifled the rebellion.”

   “I desire only to have things fairly represented as they really are; no evidence smothered or stifled.”

   “Edward Churchill still attended to his work in a hopeless mechanical manner like a sleep-walker who walks safely on a well-known round. But his Roman collar galled him, his cossack stifled him, his biretta was as uncomfortable as a merry-andrew's cap and bells.”

   “In fact, there was no suggestion of that, although Wolves deployed men behind the ball to stifle the league leaders in a first-half that proved very frustrating for City.”

6. (figuratively, transitive)To prevent (something) from being revealed; to conceal, to hide, to suppress.

   “Atticus tried to stifle a smile but didn’t make it.”

7. (transitive)To treat (a silkworm cocoon) with steam as part of the process of silk production.
8. (intransitive)To die of suffocation.

   “Two firemen tragically stifled in yesterday’s fire when trying to rescue an old lady from her bedroom.”

9. (excessive, intransitive)To smother; to make breathing difficult.

   “This heat is stifling.”

   “Nobody has shaved or changed clothes for a week, the heat stifles and the flies are everywhere. There is little water but we do not expect to be here long. This is not much of a letter, Jess. The mailbag goes down our trench once a day. I must finish because it stops for no one.”

10. (transitive)To cause (a dog, horse, or other four-legged mammal) to dislocate or sprain its stifle joint.

noun

1. (rare)An act or state of being stifled.
2. The joint between the femur and tibia in the hind leg of various four-legged mammals, especially horses, corresponding to the knee in humans.
3. A bone disease of this region.