a. [f. L. suppress-: see SUPPRESS and -IVE.] Having the quality or effect of suppressing.
1778. Johnson, 25 April, in Boswell. I consider it as a very difficult question … whether one should advise a man not to publish a work, if profit be his object…. I should scruple much to give a suppressive vote.
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), II. 232. The miasm it [sc. typhus] generates, though more suppressive or exhaustive of sensorial energy, is less volatile, than that of marsh-lands.
1860. Froude, Hist. Eng., xxxv. VI. 529. The use of strong suppressive measures to keep down the unruly tendencies of uncontrolled fanatics.
1885. [W. H. White], M. Rutherford’s Deliv., ii. 32. Nor was it even possible for any single family to emerge amidst such altogether suppressive surroundings.
Hence Suppressively adv.
1837. Carlyle, Misc. Ess. Mirabeau. The former set of pangs he … crushes down into his soul suppressively.
