English-German translations for smother

ersticken
Die Hinwendung der Europäischen Union zum globalen Kapitalismus wird uns alle ersticken. The European Union's embrace of global capitalism is an embrace that will smother us all. Dieser Verfassungsentwurf, der darauf abzielt, die Staaten zu ersticken, ist meiner Auffassung nach unvereinbar mit dem Ausdruck der Demokratie ist. This draft constitution, which seeks to smother individual states, is, in my opinion, incompatible with democratic expression. Wird sie die KMU des Lebensmittelsektors durch immer striktere Vorschriften ersticken, die die Bürger immer weniger hinzunehmen bereit sind? Will it smother small- and medium-sized food businesses with even stricter regulation, that will be tolerated by fewer and fewer citizens?
dämpfen

To suffocate; stifle; obstruct, more or less completely, the respiration of something or someone
To reduce to a low degree of vigor or activity; suppress or do away with; extinguish
In cookery: to cook in a close dish
To daub or smear
To breathe with great difficulty by reason of smoke, dust, close covering or wrapping, or the like
to perish, grow feeble, or decline, by suppression or concealment; be stifled; be suppressed or concealed
To get in the way of a kick of the ball, preventing it going very far. When a player is kicking the ball, an opponent who is close enough will reach out with his hands and arms to get over the top of it, so the ball hits his hands after leaving the kicker's boot, dribbling away
That which smothers or appears to smother, ''particularly''

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