repress

English

Etymology 1

Ultimately from Latin repressus, the perfect passive participle of reprimō (“I repress”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹəˈpɹɛs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛs

Verb

repress (third-person singular simple present represses, present participle repressing, simple past and past participle repressed)

1. (transitive) To forcefully prevent an upheaval from developing further.

   Synonyms: crush, put down, quell, subdue, suppress

   to repress rebellion or sedition

   to repress the first risings of discontent

2. (transitive, by extension) To check; to keep back.

   Synonyms: restrain, hold back; see also Thesaurus:curb

   • 1671, John Milton, “The Second Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 37, lines 542–544:

     Deſire of wine and all delicious drinks […] Thou couldſt repreſs,

Related terms

• repression
• repressive
• repressor

Translations

forcefully prevent an upheaval from developing

• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Basque: zapaldu
• Bulgarian: потушавам (bg) (potušavam)
• Catalan: reprimir (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 鎮壓／镇压 (zh) (zhènyā)

• Esperanto: subpremi, sufoki
• Finnish: tukahduttaa (fi)
• French: réprimer (fr), opprimer (fr)
• Galician: reprimir (gl)
• Georgian: please add this translation if you can
• German: zurückdrängen (de), unterbinden (de), unterdrücken (de)
• Hungarian: elfojt (hu)
• Khmer: បង្ក្រាប (km) (bɑngkraap)
• Latin: reprimo
• Maori: kurupena (refers to feelings), whakakōmau, koropehu, tāmoe
• Persian: سرکوفتن (sarkuftan), سرکوب کردن (fa) (sarkub kardan)
• Portuguese: reprimir (pt)
• Russian: подавлять (ru) impf (podavljatʹ), сдерживать (ru) impf (sderživatʹ), подавить (ru) pf (podavitʹ), сдержать (ru) pf (sderžatʹ), усмирять (ru) impf (usmirjatʹ), усмирить (ru) pf (usmiritʹ), пресекать (ru) impf (presekatʹ), пресечь (ru) pf (presečʹ)
• Spanish: reprimir (es)
• Thai: กลั้น (th) (glân), ระงับ (th) (rá-ngáp)
• Tibetan: བཙན་གནོན་བྱས (btsan gnon byas)
• Tocharian B: mäl-
• Turkish: please add this translation if you can
• Uyghur: please add this translation if you can
• Vietnamese: đàn áp (vi)
• Welsh: adwthio

to keep back

• Bulgarian: сдържам (bg) (sdǎržam), възпирам (bg) (vǎzpiram)
• Catalan: reprimir (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 抑制 (zh) (yìzhì)

• Esperanto: deteni
• Finnish: pidättää (fi) (+ partitive)
• French: retenir (fr)
• Latin: reprimo
• Russian: сдерживать (ru) impf (sderživatʹ), сдерживаться (ru) impf (sderživatʹsja), сдержать (ru) pf (sderžatʹ), воздерживаться (ru) impf (vozderživatʹsja), воздержаться (ru) pf (vozderžatʹsja), подавлять (ru) impf (podavljatʹ), подавить (ru) pf (podavitʹ)
• Spanish: reprimir (es)

Etymology 2

From re- +‎ press.

Verb

repress (third-person singular simple present represses, present participle repressing, simple past and past participle repressed)

1. To press again.

   to repress a vinyl record

   • 2019, Niall Williams, This is Happiness, Bloomsbury (2020), pages 300-301:

     It had been a fraught car journey. From it my abiding memory is Charlie Troy having a deep but short-lived relationship with a smoking cigarette, rummaging after in the depthless depth of a shiny black handbag for a forbidden lipstick, finding it, applying it in Heaney’s mirror with a magician’s dexterity that defied the inconsistencies of the road, pressing, unpressing, and repressing her lips until the look came to her satisfaction and the bow was drawn.

Translations

press again

•  Chinese:

   Mandarin: 重新壓製／重新压制 (chóngxīn yāzhì)

•  Finnish: painaa uudelleen
•  French: represser (fr)

Noun

repress (plural represses)

1. A record pressed again; a repressing.
   • 2010, Clinton Heylin, Bootleg! The Rise And Fall Of The Secret Recording Industry:

     Save for the shows he actually taped — Dylan, Springsteen, Page & Plant and other kindred spirits — his own titles by 1994 were just represses of hard-to-find Japanese or American titles.

Translations

repressing — see repressing

Anagrams

• Presser, presser