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the horse and allied animals; the joint corresponding to the knee in man; -- called also stifle joint. See Illust. under Horse. Stifle bone, a small bone at the stifle joint; the patella, or kneepan.

Stifling. The close and stifled study. Hawthorne.

One who, or that which, stifles.

To render unable to breathe by filling, pressing upon, or squeezing the windpipe; to stifle; to suffocate; to strangle. With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder. Shak.

The state of being close. Half stifled by the closeness of the room. Swift. We rise not against the piercing judgment of Augustus, nor the extreme caution or closeness of Tiberius. Bacon. An affectation of closeness and covetousness. Addison.

Obscurely heard; stifled; deadened. [R.] A deaf murmur through the squadron went. Dryden.

To quench; to put out, as a light or fire; to stifle; to cause to die out; to put an end to; to destroy; as, to extinguish a flame, or life, or love, or hope, a pretense or a right. A light which the fierce winds have no power to extinguish. Prescott. This extinguishes my right to the reversion. Blackstone.…

ed her to remove were, because Rome was a place of riot and luxury, her soul being almost stifled with, the frequencies of ladies' visits. Fuller.

To stifle or choke. [Prov. Eng.] Halliwell.

To suffocate or stifle; to smother. [Scot. & Prov. Eng.]

To be suffocated or stifled.

To stifle or smother with smoke; to smoke by means of a smudge.

To be stifled or suffocated.

To stifle, choke, or suffocate in any manner. Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, . . . And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes Shak.

To choke or kill by stopping respiration; to stifle; to smother. Let not hemp his windpipe suffocate. Shak.

Tending or able to choke or stifle. "Suffocative catarrhs." Arbuthnot.