held in check; kept inside; not released; unable to be released: pent-up emotion
The man was pent-up due to his stressful work environment.
The definition of pent-up is something that builds up and isn't expressed or released.
An example of pent-up is when you don't cry when you are sad.
YourDictionary definition and usage example. Copyright © 2018 by LoveToKnow Corp
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"pent-up." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 22 March 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/pent-up>.
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pent-up. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22nd, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/pent-up
pent-up
Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fifth Edition Copyright © 2014 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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MLA Style
"pent-up." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 22 March 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/pent-up>.
APA Style
pent-up. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22nd, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/pent-up
pent-up
adjective
Not given expression; repressed: pent-up emotions.
THE AMERICAN HERITAGE® DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, FIFTH EDITION by the Editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Copyright © 2016, 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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Cite this page
MLA Style
"pent-up." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 22 March 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/pent-up>.
APA Style
pent-up. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22nd, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/pent-up
Adjective
(comparative more pent-up, superlative most pent-up)
- not expressed
- repressed or suppressed, especially of emotions or impulses
- He punched his pillow and screamed at the top of his lungs about all the pent-up frustrations from the day.
Anagrams
English Wiktionary. Available under CC-BY-SA license.
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Cite this page
MLA Style
"pent-up." YourDictionary, n.d. Web. 22 March 2019. <https://www.yourdictionary.com/pent-up>.
APA Style
pent-up. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22nd, 2019, from https://www.yourdictionary.com/pent-up
Sentence Examples
- They can help a child release pent-up frustration and energy, develop social skills, and discover talents, abilities, and interests.
- To date, TPM is the highest grossing Star Wars movie, probably because of the pent-up demand occasioned by the lengthy wait.
- Once the door to freedom is opened, pent-up demand keeps it open, whether openly or underground.
- In doing so, we must be careful to remember that the study of the classics did but give a special impulse to pent-up energies which were bound in one way or another to assert their independence.
- All this time Heloise had lived amid universal esteem for her knowledge and character, uttering no word under the doom that had fallen upon her youth; but now, at last, the occasion came for expressing all the pent-up emotions of her soul.
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WORDS NEAR pent-up IN THE DICTIONARY
- pent-up
- penta
- penta-
- pentaacetate