  We report the pressure dependence of the optical response of LaTe$_2$, which
is deep in the charge-density-wave (CDW) ground state even at 300 K. The
reflectivity spectrum is collected in the mid-infrared spectral range at room
temperature and at pressures between 0 and 7 GPa. We extract the energy scale
due to the single particle excitation across the CDW gap and the Drude weight.
We establish that the gap decreases upon compressing the lattice, while the
Drude weight increases. This signals a reduction in the quality of nesting upon
applying pressure, therefore inducing a lesser impact of the CDW condensate on
the electronic properties of LaTe$_2$. The consequent suppression of the CDW
gap leads to a release of additional charge carriers, manifested by the shift
of weight from the gap feature into the metallic component of the optical
response. On the contrary, the power-law behavior, seen in the optical
conductivity at energies above the gap excitation and indicating a weakly
interacting limit within the Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid scenario, seems to be
only moderately dependent on pressure.
