choke back

present singular third person chokes back · participle present choking back · participle past choked back · past choked back

1. transitiveTo hold back or suppress (an emotion, expression of emotion, or utterance), with difficulty.

   When she slapped me, I tried hard to choke back my tears.

   5 more examples

   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

   Choking back his own fear of the desolate, grassless woodland […], he began.

   1972, Richard Adams, chapter 5, in Watership Down, London: Macmillan