subpremi

A genuine build, and a transparent one. Sub plus premi: to press down on something. Latin got to suppress by exactly the same route - sub plus premere - so the Esperanto word and the English one are the same idea assembled twice, once in Rome and once by Zamenhof. That is the ideal case for a learner: the parts are both words you already know, and the compound means what the parts say.

Register: aim it at power, not at people you dislike. Subpremi is the vocabulary of governments, armies, empires and censors. A regime subpremas a minority, a revolt, a language, a newspaper. It is not the word for a bully in a playground - that is turmenti or persekuti - and it is not the word for holding down a lid. Because the object is usually abstract (libereco, ribelo, vero), the noun subpremado for the ongoing state of oppression is at least as common as the verb.

The one place it goes inward. You can subpremi a feeling: a laugh, a sob, an urge. Subpremi rideton is to stifle a smile, and the metaphor is the same physical one, pressed down and kept there. The passive participle subpremita is the workhorse form in prose, and subpremanto is the oppressor. Premi on its own, without the prefix, is simply to press - a button, a hand, a grape.