dam up

Most of you boys have sometimes made little dams, to dam up water along the ditch or slough.

It appeared that, instead of having been built to conserve the water, it was designed to dam up the flow entirely.

You may as well try to dam up Niagara as to make some folks reticent of their thoughts and feelings.

The thing it would emphatically not do is to dam up an insurgent current until it overflowed the countryside.

She could dam up the wellspring of her impulses, walk steadfast along the accustomed ways.