"almost stifled" is a correct phrase that can be used in written English.
You can use it when describing a feeling of being suppressed or held back by some external force. For example, "The crowd's cheers were almost stifled by the tumultuous sound of the fireworks."
"I used to be such a control freak," she said, referring to the black-and-white short films "Fugitive Love" (1991) and "Family Remains" (1993) that won her early acclaim and that she called "stylized, almost stifled, very controlled things".
And now she's at the pony's tail, And now is at the pony's head, On that side now, and now on this; And almost stifled with her bliss, A few sad tears does Betty shed.
Tchaikovsky had also to confront an ominous personal drama that almost stifled the opera at birth.As the composer laboured to make music out of Pushkin's tragic tale the rejection of an epistolary declaration of love which is later regretted he received an unexpected love letter of his own from one of his students at the music conservatory.
The big six control no less than 98% of the retail market, and price competition is almost totally stifled.
The title of Edward Luce's "In Spite of the Gods" was partly inspired by Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India's first prime minister, who wrote that religion "has not only broken our backs but stifled and almost killed all originality of thought or mind".
Their silence isn't resonant; it's stifled, and stifling.
Playing up this contrast between almost facile melody and forceful, stifled statement in the first movement gave the work a new dramatic line and made it the highlight of a strong concert.
When newspapers say that Britain is a secretive and stifled society, they can almost hear their readers stifling a yawn.
Suppression of feelings is almost always followed by that same stifled feeling exploding out of nowhere in a way that is much more difficult to control.
And what may be more surprising for generations who have lived with Woolf's vision of Judith Shakespeare and her contemporaries: there is almost no evidence of oppression, none of stifled talents, little sign of beings "so thwarted and hindered" that they contemplate suicide.
"Such changes occurred in Western Europe in the early 1980s and, by most accounts, kept unemployment elevated and stifled economic growth".
