air-breathe

American  

[air-breeth] / ˈɛərˌbrið /

verb (used without object)

air-breathed, air-breathing

1. (of an engine, aircraft, missile, etc.) to take in air from the atmosphere to oxidize the fuel for combustion.

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Etymology

Origin of air-breathe

air ¹ + breathe

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

air-breathing

It’s more difficult to rehabilitate an animal like a sawfish than it is for an air-breathing marine creature, such as a dolphin or manatee, officials say.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 12, 2024

“The only reason organisms can survive at that depth is because they’re more or less the same density as the water around them, so they don’t get deformed like us air-breathing creatures.”

From Scientific American ● Jun. 20, 2023

Aerojet develops and manufactures liquid and solid rocket propulsion, air-breathing hypersonic engines, and electric power and propulsion for space, defense, civil and commercial applications.

From Reuters ● Jan. 11, 2022

The researchers also sequenced the bichir, an elongated, air-breathing, ray-finned fish that lives in the shallows of tropical African rivers, as well as the American paddlefish, the bowfin, and the alligator gar.

From Science Magazine ● Feb. 10, 2021

Take off the skins from some dozen air-breathing vertebrates, place the bodies in an upright attitude, and they are in general structure identical.

From The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 by Various