bottle up

Verb

bottle up (third-person singular simple present bottles up, present participle bottling up, simple past and past participle bottled up)

1. (transitive) To put into bottles.
2. (transitive) To prevent (enemy vessels) from leaving an anchorage.
   • Paul Brunner spoke over his shoulder, "In the last war the cruiser Königsberg hid in an African river and made her repairs." / Kurt answered, "Yes, sir, but she didn't get out again. The Royal Navy bottled her up and finally destroyed her."1990, Alan Evans, Orphans of the Storm, London: Coronet Books, →ISBN, page 136
3. (idiomatic, transitive) To keep suppressed and hidden.
   • Emotions are often bottled up rather than dealt with, which can lead to stress in later life.
   • Pennsylvania gay activists were taken by surprise at the bill's assignment to the Labor Relations Committee. They had hoped to "bottle up" the bill in another House committee but an early poll of Labor Relations members indicates that attempts to stop the bill may now be more difficult.1975 December 27, “Anti-Gay Bill on the Move”, in Gay Community News, volume 3, number 26, page 3
4. (informal, transitive) To comprehensively defeat.
   • Leosthenes defeated Antipater in battle—the first defeat of a Macedonian army for thirty years—and bottled him up in the town of Lamia.2011, Robin Waterfield, Dividing the Spoils: The War for Alexander the Great's Empire, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 39
5. (slang, transitive) To prevent (an opponent) from achieving any effective action.
   • Darrion Trammell and San Diego State used a dominant defensive performance to knock top overall seed Alabama out of the NCAA Tournament on Friday night, bottling up All-America freshman Brandon Miller in a 71-64 victory in the Sweet 16.2023 March 25, “San Diego State ousts Alabama as all four No. 1 seeds fall short of Elite 8 for 1st time”, in CBC News, archived from the original on 08 Apr 2023
   • Arguably the most important sequence of the game came with less than 30 seconds to play and the Nuggets clinging to a 90-89 lead. Butler drove to the rim but got bottled up in the post by Murray and Jokic then tried to find teammate Max Strus in the corner, but the ball was stolen by Nuggets...2013 June 13, Nick Friedell, “Spoelstra, Heat bow out with 'no regrets on our end'”, in ABC News, archived from the original on 14 Jun 2023