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suppression

noun

Simple meaning

A process in which a person consciously excludes anxiety-producing thoughts, feelings.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

suhprehshuhn

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

səpˈɹɛʃən

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The act or instance of suppressing.

  2. The state of being suppressed.

  3. psychology

    A process in which a person consciously excludes anxiety-producing thoughts, feelings, or memories.

  4. of an eye

    A subconscious adaptation by a person's brain to eliminate the symptoms of disorders of binocular vision such as strabismus, convergence insufficiency and aniseikonia.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The act or instance of suppressing.

Used this way, suppression is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

fire suppressioncomplete suppressionsuppression testmarrow suppressionimmune suppressiontotal suppressiondexamethasone suppressionsuppression hearing

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.