bottle up

verb

bottled up; bottling up; bottles up

: to keep (a feeling or emotion) inside instead of expressing it : to hide (a feeling or emotion)

She's kept her feelings about the accident bottled up for too long.

I know he's angry, but he bottles it up inside instead of talking to someone about it.

Examples of bottle up in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

In the first stint of the race, Russell and Norris were both bottled up behind slower cars but couldn’t find a way past them on the narrow streets. —Sahil Kapur, NBC news, 7 June 2026

The current situation in early 2026 is a supply reduction, with oil effectively bottled up in the Persian Gulf. —Bill Conerly, Forbes.com, 28 May 2026

Staying bottled up was impossible, but there was a middle ground. —Matthew Futterman, New York Times, 26 May 2026

In Florida, the tiny town of Micanopy (pronounced Mi-kuh-no-pee) has bottled up the nostalgia of these classic institutions and built a community around the feeling. —Tara Massouleh McCay, Southern Living, 12 May 2026

Rhymes for bottle up

• buttercup
• backup
• blowup
• breakup
• buildup
• checkup
• cleanup
• holdup
• hookup
• lineup
• lockup
• makeup