stifle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To interrupt or cut off (the voice, for example).
2. v. To keep in or hold back; repress: stifled my indignation.
3. v. To kill by preventing respiration; smother or suffocate.
4. v. To feel smothered or suffocated by or as if by close confinement in a stuffy room.
5. v. To die of suffocation.
6. n. The joint of the hind leg analogous to the human knee in certain quadrupeds, such as the horse.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To choke up; dam up; close.
2. To kill by impeding respiration, as by covering the mouth and nose, by introducing an irrespirable substance into the lungs, or by other means; suffocate or greatly oppress by foul air or otherwise; smother.
3. To stop the passage of; arrest the free action of; extinguish; deaden; quench: as, to stifle flame; to stifle sound.
4. To suppress; keep from active manifestation; keep from public notice; conceal; repress; destroy: as, to stifle inquiry; to stifle a report; to stifle passion; to stifle convictions.
5. Synonyms Suffocate, Strangle, etc. See smother.
6. To husn, muffle, muzzle, gag.
7. To suffocate; perish by asphyxia.
8. n. The stifle-joint.
9. n. Disease or other affection of the stifle-bone or stifle-joint, as dislocation or fracture of the patella.

Wiktionary

1. n. A hind knee of various mammals, especially horses.
2. n. veterinary medicine A bone disease of this region.
3. v. transitive To interrupt or cut off.
4. v. transitive To repress, keep in or hold back.
5. v. transitive To smother or suffocate.
6. v. intransitive To feel smothered etc.
7. v. intransitive To die of suffocation.
8. v. transitive To treat a silkworm cocoon with steam as part of the process of silk production.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Far.) The joint next above the hock, and near the flank, in the hind leg of the horse and allied animals; the joint corresponding to the knee in man; -- called also stifle joint. See Illust. under horse.
2. v. To stop the breath of by crowding something into the windpipe, or introducing an irrespirable substance into the lungs; to choke; to suffocate; to cause the death of by such means.
3. v. To stop; to extinguish; to deaden; to quench.
4. v. To suppress the manifestation or report of; to smother; to conceal from public knowledge.
5. v. To die by reason of obstruction of the breath, or because some noxious substance prevents respiration.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. impair the respiration of or obstruct the air passage of
2. n. joint between the femur and tibia in a quadruped; corresponds to the human knee
3. v. conceal or hide
4. v. smother or suppress
5. v. be asphyxiated; die from lack of oxygen