- suppression
- 1. Deliberately excluding from conscious thought. Cf.:repression. 2. Arrest of the secretion of a fluid, such as urine or bile. Cf.:retention (2). 3. Checking of an abnormal flow or discharge, as in s. of a hemorrhage. 4. The effect of a second mutation which overwrites a phenotypic change caused by a previous mutation at a different point on the chromosome. See epistasis. 5. Inhibition of vision in one eye when dissimilar images fall on corresponding retinal points. [L. subprimo (subp-), pp. -pressus, to press down]- intergenic s. See suppressor mutation (2).- intragenic s. See suppressor mutation (2).
* * *
a) stoppage of a bodily function or a symptom <\suppression of urine secretion> <\suppression of a cough>b) the failure of development of a bodily part or organc) the conscious intentional exclusion from consciousness of a thought or feeling compare REPRESSION (2a)* * *
n.1. the cessation or complete inhibition of any physiological activity.2. treatment that removes the outward signs of an illness or prevents its progress.3. (in psychology) a defence mechanism by which a person consciously and deliberately ignores an idea that is unpleasant to him.* * *
sup·pres·sion (sə-preshґən) [L. suppressus, past part. of supprimere to hold back] 1. the act of holding back or checking. 2. sudden stoppage or inhibition, as of a secretion, excretion, normal discharge, or other function. 3. in psychiatry, conscious inhibition of an unacceptable impulse or idea as contrasted with repression, which is unconscious. 4. in genetics, masking of the phenotypic expression of a mutation by the occurrence of a second (suppressor) mutation at a different site from the first; the organism appears to be reverted but is in fact doubly mutant. Cf. reversion (def. 2). 5. cortical inhibition of perception of objects in all or part of the visual field of one eye during binocular vision.
Medical dictionary. 2011.
