To suppress means to hold something back, keep it down, or prevent it from being seen, heard, or expressed. When you suppress a yawn during class, you're trying to keep it from showing even though your body wants to yawn. When you suppress a laugh during a serious moment, you're fighting hard to keep it inside.

Suppress often describes stopping something by force or authority. A government might suppress free speech by punishing people who criticize it. A ruler might suppress a rebellion by using military force to stop it. These uses of suppress suggest power being used to control or silence something.

The word also appears in science and medicine. Your immune system can suppress an infection by fighting off germs. Doctors might prescribe medicine to suppress a cough or relieve pain.

Notice that suppressing something doesn't make it disappear: it just keeps it from showing or spreading. When you suppress your feelings about something unfair, those feelings don't vanish, they just stay hidden inside you. Suppressed information doesn't stop being true, it's just kept secret. This makes suppress different from words like eliminate or destroy, which mean getting rid of something completely. Suppression is about control and concealment, not elimination.