Advertisement
Advertisement
bottle up
verb
- to restrain (powerful emotion)
- to keep (an army or other force) contained or trapped
the French fleet was bottled up in Le Havre
Discover More
Idioms and Phrases
Repress, contain, hold back; also, confine or trap. For example, The psychiatrist said Eve had been bottling up her anger for years , or The accident bottled up traffic for miles . This idiom likens other kinds of restraint to liquid being contained in a bottle. [Mid-1800s]Discover More
Example Sentences
They wanted to sink the Merrimac at a narrow point in the harbor, and bottle up the Spanish fleet beyond it.
So we cocked the bottle up on a rock and went back to the pirate-cave-entrance place to finish a game of smugglers.
We bottle up ourselves and defy the world's cork-screws—all save the Thoracic.
But the year has been a sobering one, and what used to flash, they bottle up.
Perfume with essence (otto) of roses; give a very pale pink hue with tincture of cochineal, filter and bottle up.
Advertisement
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Browse