tamp down

verb tamps down · tamping down · tamped down

1. To compact a substance (usually soil) until it is flat.
2. broadly, idiomatic To suppress or reduce (something, usually an emotion or thought). Parents referred to their sons and daughters as having been kidnapped, as if a thief—dressed in a pediatrician’s white coat—had stolen them away in the night. Meanwhile, public health officials, caught off guard by the soaring prevalence estimates, and alarmed by the growing number of parents decidi