asphyxiate
Americanverb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of asphyxiate
First recorded in 1830–40; asphyxi(a) + -ate 1
Explanation
To asphyxiate is to keep someone from breathing — to suffocate or smother them. Choking on a piece of food can asphyxiate a person. Your body needs to breathe oxygen in order to function, and when it's deprived of oxygen that's called asphyxia or asphyxiation. If a person stops being able to breathe, you can also say they asphyxiate. The origin of this verb is asphyxia, "stopping of the pulse," in Greek, which originally had the same meaning in English, before it came to mean "suffocation."
Vocabulary lists containing asphyxiate
National Spelling Bee '14: Prelims Round 3
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This Week in Words: November 24 - 30, 2018
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Selected Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The allegations were released Thursday by Haiti’s antigovernment corruption unit, whose general director, Hans Joseph, pledged to go after those who “torpedo the public treasury and asphyxiate the country’s economic and social development efforts.”
From Seattle Times • Aug. 26, 2022
Avalanche victims can asphyxiate from breathing in carbon monoxide from their own exhalation while buried beneath the snow.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 8, 2021
While white phosphorus has toxic chemical properties, it is not generally used to poison or asphyxiate, the common aim of chemical weapons.
From The Guardian • Dec. 18, 2019
They now dominate the culture so thoroughly that they threaten to asphyxiate it.
From New York Times • Oct. 16, 2019
Poor engine hates it—coughing and spluttering the whole way—suppose I’m lucky I didn’t asphyxiate in the exhaust.
From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
