choke back

choke back (third-person singular simple present chokes back, present participle choking back, simple past and past participle choked back)

1. (transitive) To hold back or suppress (an emotion, expression of emotion, or utterance).

   When she slapped me, I tried hard to choke back my tears.

   He had a cutting retort on the tip of his tongue, but he choked it back.

   • 1884, R. M. Ballantyne, Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished, London: James Nisbet, Chapter 6, p. 71,

     […] when Di looked at his pinched and pale face in this placid condition, the tears would overflow their natural boundary, and sobs would rise up in her pretty throat, but she choked them back for fear of disturbing her boy.

   • 1909, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea, Chapter 10,

     Anne choked back a mad desire to laugh with the conviction that it would be fatal, and then earnestly set about saving Marilla’s reputation.

   • 1936, Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind, New York: Macmillan, Part 2, Chapter 12, p. 221,

     Now it was painful to have to choke back words for fear of his amused grin.

   • 1972, Richard Adams, Watership Down, London: Macmillan, Chapter 5,

     Choking back his own fear of the desolate, grassless woodland […] , he began.