repressible adj.

late 14c., "to check, restrain (sin, error); to overcome, put down, subdue (riot, rebellion);" from Latin repressus, past participle of reprimere "hold back, curb," figuratively "check, confine, restrain, refrain," from re- "back" (see re-) + premere "to press, hold fast, cover, crowd, compress" (from PIE root *per- (4) "to strike").

Used of feelings or desires from late 14c.; in the purely psychological sense "keep out of the conscious mind, keep in the subconscious" it represents German verdrängen (Freud, 1893), that sense of the word first attested in English in 1904 (implied in repressed). Related: Repressed; repressing.

word-forming element making adjectives from verbs, borrowed in Middle English from Old French -ible and directly from Latin adjective suffix -ibilis (properly -bilis); see -able.

"not able to be controlled or restrained," 1763, from assimilated form of in- (1) "not, opposite of" + repress (v.) + -ible.

Increase of population, which is filling the States out to their very borders, together with a new and extended network of railroads and other avenues, and an internal commerce which daily becomes more intimate, is rapidly bringing the States into a higher and more perfect social unity or consolidation. Thus, these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact, and collision results.

Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefor ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation. [William H. Seward, speech at Rochester, N.Y., Oct. 2, 1858]

Related: Irrepressibly. "Common Sense" (1777) has unrepressible.