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say it: in-HIB-uht
inhibit is a verb meaning "prohibit, forbid, or prevent from doing something". It is pronounced /ˌɪnˈhɪbət/ — in-HIB-uht. It carries 4 recorded senses.
prohibit, forbid, or prevent from doing something
“Contact between the young was inhibited by strict social customs”
limit, block, or decrease the action or function of
“inhibit the action of the enzyme”
“inhibit the rate of a chemical reaction”
biology · chemistry
consciously restrain from showing; of emotions, desires, impulses, or behavior
“suppress a smile”
“he let his anger bottle up until he exploded”
make (someone) self-conscious and as a result unable to act naturally
“his father's cold and distant demeanor inhibited him emotionally”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for inhibit come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.