Other forms: inhibits, inhibited, inhibiting
To inhibit is to hold back a process or make a person feel too shy to act. Inhibit growth, inhibit the reaction, feel inhibited.
In science it is neutral and precise: a substance that inhibits slows or blocks a specific step. Of people it means restrained by self-consciousness, and being inhibited is not the same as being shy — one is about feeling watched. Note that the Latin means to hold in, from habere, to have or hold.
1verbinhibitTo hold back a process.
“Cold temperatures inhibit the growth of bacteria in food.”
2verbselfTo make somebody too self-conscious to act.
“Her strict father's presence inhibited her from speaking freely.”
inhibit is a holding back.
Also accepted in games: restrain
Latin inhibere is in plus habere, to hold. Habit, exhibit and prohibit come from the same holding.
Proto-Indo-European
*gʰeh₁bʰ-
Latin
inhibitus
English, today
inhibit
Built from
From Latin inhibitus, perfect passive participle of inhibeō (“to hold in, check, restrain”), from in (“in, at, on”), + habeō (“to have, hold, keep”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA