Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
choke back en · VERB
Meanings
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(transitive) To hold back or suppress (an emotion, expression of emotion, or utterance), with difficulty.
Choking back his own fear of the desolate, grassless woodland […], he began.
1972, Richard Adams, chapter 5, in Watership Down, London: Macmillan:When she slapped me, I tried hard to choke back my tears.
He had a cutting retort on the tip of his tongue, but he choked it back.
[…] when Di looked at his pinched and pale face in this placid condition, the tears would overflow their natural boundary, and sobs would rise up in her pretty throat, but she choked them back for fear of disturbing her boy.
1884, R. M. Ballantyne, chapter 6, in Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished, London: James Nisbet, page 71:Anne choked back a mad desire to laugh with the conviction that it would be fatal, and then earnestly set about saving Marilla’s reputation.
1909, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 10, in Anne of Avonlea:Now it was painful to have to choke back words for fear of his amused grin.
1936 June 30, Margaret Mitchell, chapter XII, in Gone with the Wind, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, published June 1944, →OCLC, part II, page 221:
Forms