suppress

Suppress is a verb that means to prevent, restrain, or inhibit something from occurring or from becoming visible or audible. It can refer to stopping an action, quieting a sound, concealing information, or reducing a force or emotion. The noun suppression denotes the act, or the state, of being suppressed, and suppression mechanisms are devices or processes that perform this function.

Originating from the Latin suppressus, from sub- "under" and premere "to press," the term entered English in the late Middle Ages and has since acquired broad use across domains.

Common uses include everyday speech, such as suppressing a cough or anger; medical contexts, where symptoms may be suppressed by drugs or where gene expression can be suppressed by techniques such as RNA interference; and legal settings, where evidence or information may be suppressed by court orders or by law.

Technology and science use suppression to describe noise reduction in audio processing, signal suppression in communications, or data suppression to protect privacy by redacting identifiers. In psychology, suppression contrasts with repression as a conscious process of withholding a thought or feeling. The term can imply coercive or voluntary action and often signals a deliberate effort to limit impact, visibility, or availability of something.