ir·re·press·i·ble

(ĭr′ĭ-prĕs′ə-bəl)

adj.

Difficult or impossible to control or restrain: irrepressible laughter.

ir′re·press′i·bil′i·ty, ir′re·press′i·ble·ness n.

ir′re·press′i·bly adv.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

irrepressibility - irrepressible liveliness and good spirit; "I admired his buoyancy and persistent good humor"

buoyancy

sprightliness, liveliness, spirit, life - animation and energy in action or expression; "it was a heavy play and the actors tried in vain to give life to it"

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Breaking so violently through the commonplaceness and formality of the age, however, they offer eloquent testimony to the irrepressibility of the romantic instinct in human nature.

View in context

"She is a force of nature and I found her irrepressibility and vision compelling.

SAM STOREY

Naples and Pompeii are themselves experiencing rebirths, adding an extra dimension to a show about the irrepressibility of Pompeian life.

The (really) old and new meet in Naples

But Haneke brings his film even closer to Balanzategui's trope through the implication in Cache's final shot that Majid's son may have collaborated with Pierrot in terrorizing the Laurents, suggesting, as with the Spanish films in Balanzategui's essay, the affinity between children and the irrepressibility of national trauma.

The Terror of Childness in Modern Horror Cinema

This language knows no limits, no homeland, and no borders and, perhaps most importantly, affirms the irrepressibility of words.

JUAN GELMAN'S MUNDAR AND THE STRANGE LOGIC OF POETRY

Gerhardt, The Irrepressibility of Precedent, 86 N.C.

Friendly precedent

Argentina lost captain Agustin Creevy to injury, but there was an irrepressibility about their play and only desperate tackles prevented wing Santiago Cordero and centre Juan Martin Hernandez from scoring.

Advance Australia as Ashley-Cooper treble sets up massive final

The irrepressibility of Yezierska's protagonists strikes Dewey's characters as perhaps admirable in some ways and evidence for the charm and color of the Jewish ghetto, but such immigrant energy is also uncouth, a sign that these young immigrant women are unready or unfit to join refined, highly educated circles.

"The kindling breath of another mind": Anzia Yezierska's critique of American education

This character's positive traits are traced back to a childhood and girlhood that evinced irrepressibility just as the author claims she witnessed in women around her as a child and adult.

Redefining otherness: writing fictional (auto)biography and centring female subjectivity in Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo's Children of the Eagle

The irrepressibility of that prejudice surprises Demshuk, and while he ostensibly opposes it he remains unable to repudiate it on the basis of historical facts.

The Lost German East: Forced Migration and the Politics of Memory, 1945-1970

Her extensive career in health sciences librarianship leaves a legacy of wit, dedication, irrepressibility, irreverence, charm, elegance, and love of her profession and of life.

Ysabel Bertolucci, AHIP, 1949-2012