Etymology Ultimately from Latin repressus, the perfect passive participle of reprimō (“to repress”).
1
To forcefully prevent an upheaval from developing further.
to repress rebellion or sedition
to repress the first risings of discontent
2
Broadly To check; to keep back.
Deſire of wine and all delicious drinks […] Thou couldſt repreſs,1671, John Milton, “The Second Book”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 37, lines 542–544:
Save for the shows he actually taped — Dylan, Springsteen, Page & Plant and other kindred spirits — his own titles by 1994 were just represses of hard-to-find Japanese or American titles.2010, Clinton Heylin, Bootleg! The Rise And Fall Of The Secret Recording Industry:
repress
verb
Etymology From re- + press.
1
To press again.
to repress a vinyl record
It had been a fraught car journey. From it my abiding memory is Charlie Troy having a deep but short-lived relationship with a smoking cigarette, rummaging after in the depthless depth of a shiny black handbag for a forbidden lipstick, finding it, applying it in Heaney’s mirror with a magician’s dexterity that defied the inconsistencies of the road, pressing, unpressing, and repressing her lips until the look came to her satisfaction and the bow was drawn.2019, Niall Williams, This is Happiness, Bloomsbury (2020), pages 300-301: