To stifle a laugh means to suppress, hold back, or prevent yourself from laughing out loud, usually because the situation calls for seriousness, politeness, or quiet, making it a quiet, muffled sound rather than a full burst of laughter. It involves an effort to keep the laughter in, similar to stifling a yawn, cough, or scream, often by covering your mouth or biting your lip.
Definitions of 'stifle'
If you stifle a yawn or laugh, you prevent yourself from yawning or laughing.
There is "stifling a laugh," which is just when a person is trying to keep from laughing.
/ˈstaɪfəld/ Stifled is an adjective for anything that's been squashed or smothered. You might have a stifled ambition to be an astronaut that you never admitted to others. Something stifled is stunted, or prevented from growing.
Pseudobulbar affect (PBA): sudden, uncontrollable episodes of laughing or crying that are disproportionate or inappropriate to the situation. Common after stroke, traumatic brain injury, multiple sclerosis, ALS, or other brain disorders that disrupt cortical control of emotional expression.
Pseudobulbar affect (PBA) is a neurological condition that causes outbursts of uncontrolled or inappropriate laughing or crying. These episodes don't match your internal emotional state. PBA develops as the result of a brain injury or underlying neurological condition, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Laughter keeps the pain at arm's length. Smiling or laughing when disclosing trauma can be an indicator of shame. Some trauma survivors hold deeply entrenched feelings of self-blame and other distorted and inaccurate thoughts about the role they believe they played in their abuse.
Finding support from others
/ˈstaɪflɪŋ/ Other forms: stiflingly; stiflings. Something stifling makes you feel suffocated. If your mother insists on accompanying you on your first date, that will probably feel stifling. Stifle comes from the Middle English word stuffle, which means to kill by cutting off air.
Laxity is a tendency of being too easy-going, or not strict enough. If your teacher doesn't punish her math class for climbing out the classroom windows, she may be accused of laxity.
How to Stifle a Laugh
Autistic laughter may be quiet or loud, breathy or squealy, short bursts or long giggles. Families describe a high “bubble” laugh in excitement, a soft chuckle in calm, or a tight, breath-held laugh when anxious. The sound often matches any child's laugh. The difference is when and why it happens.
transitive verb. If you stifle a yawn or laugh, you prevent yourself from yawning or laughing. She makes no attempt to stifle a yawn. Synonyms: restrain, suppress, repress, smother More Synonyms of stifle.
If you're a laughingstock, you're the butt of jokes or the subject of mockery. If you always wear shiny purple polka-dotted pants to school, you might be a laughingstock — or you might be a trendsetter. Someone who's a laughingstock is ridiculed or mocked, often by a group of people rather than just one or two.
To snigger is to laugh scornfully, especially when you're trying to hide the fact that you're laughing. Kids might snigger when the biggest show-off in class falls over backward in his seat. You can generally use the verbs snigger and snicker interchangeably.
In slang, "hornier" means feeling more sexually aroused, excited, lustful, or eager for sex; it's the comparative form of "horny," describing a greater degree of sexual desire or being easily turned on, often used informally to say someone is feeling more "turned on" or "randy" than usual.
a. : to withhold from circulation or expression. stifled our anger. b. : to cut off (the voice, the breath, etc.)
Besides "out of order" or "not clean," sloppy can also mean "careless" or "overemotional." So you might do a sloppy job on an important paper for school. Or you might go to a sad movie and cry while you watch it, even though you know it's sloppy and sentimental.
Four key signs your relationship is failing include a breakdown in communication (avoiding talks or constant fighting), a significant lack of emotional and physical intimacy, growing resentment and negativity where small things become unbearable, and a future outlook where you stop planning together or feel relief at the thought of being alone, according to experts like those at Psychology Today and the Gottman Institute.
Express your emotions with yourself and others
Taking a moment to check in with how you are feeling and expressing yourself can be healthy. This may prevent emotions from building up over time if they are left unaddressed.
The University of Cincinnati's Jeffrey Strawn was featured in a VeryWell Mind article discussing "air hunger," the inability to breathe properly that can be a result of anxiety and panic.
THE FUNCTION OF SADNESS
This can be a signal to others saying that we need comforting, or to ourselves to take some time and recoup from our loss. Some people can derive pleasure from their sadness and may even seek out experiences that evoke sadness for a cathartic effect.
Intense laughter can trigger asthma attacks, heart arrhythmias, seizures, fainting spells, and in rare cases, can exacerbate existing cardiovascular conditions. It may also cause temporary loss of muscle control or breathing difficulties.
7 Clear Signs Your Body Is Releasing Stored Trauma