0 past simple and past participle of stifle
1 to (cause to) be unable to breathe because you have no air:
2 to prevent something from happening, being expressed, or continuing:
As viewpoints become entrenched, creative thought is stifled because the subject is believed to be understood.
Planters displayed a paternalistic concern for their neighbours in the processing, transportation, and sale of their crops, which stifled potential conflict.
If this does not happen the organisation will over time, become stifled and inflexible with no additional benefit to be gained from these ineffective barriers.
The result was that some machines were forced off-line and many corporate and other networks stifled.
Such interwoven signalling cascades can complicate therapeutic intervention, but the outcome could be improved if these signalling events were stifled concurrently.
After that period, little traditional knowledge was left for transmission to younger generations, and the desires to teach and to learn were stifled.
Personal animosity and stifled ambition merged with wider monastic concerns to produce an unavoidable conflict.
Debate on important ethical and political issues should not be stifled in deference to "experts" - not even to expert bioethicists, clinicians, and public health authorities.
