wheeze
Americanverb (used without object)
-
to breathe with difficulty and with a whistling sound.
Asthma caused him to wheeze.
-
to make a sound resembling difficult breathing.
The old locomotive wheezed into the station.
noun
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a wheezing breath or sound.
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an old and frequently used joke, saying, story, etc.
verb
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to breathe or utter (something) with a rasping or whistling sound
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(intr) to make or move with a noise suggestive of wheezy breathing
noun
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a husky, rasping, or whistling sound or breathing
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slang a trick, idea, or plan (esp in the phrase good wheeze )
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informal a hackneyed joke or anecdote
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
wheezesimple
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wheezessimple
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have wheezedperfect
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has wheezedperfect
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am wheezingprogressive
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are wheezingprogressive
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is wheezingprogressive
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have been wheezingperfect progressive
-
has been wheezingperfect progressive
Past
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wheezedsimple
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had wheezedperfect
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was wheezingprogressive
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were wheezingprogressive
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had been wheezingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of wheeze
1425–75; late Middle English whese (v.), probably < Old Norse hvæsa to hiss
Explanation
To breathe in a gasping, strained way is to wheeze. You might not know you're allergic to cats until you walk into the house your friend shares with six felines and start to wheeze. A particular raspy, whistling kind of breathing characterizes a wheeze. You might wheeze because you've got a bad cold, or because your asthma is acting up after that half marathon you just ran. It can be scary to wheeze sometimes, because it feels like you're not getting quite as much air as you need with each breath. Wheeze shares a Scandinavian root with the Old Norse hvoesa, "to hiss."
Vocabulary lists containing wheeze
James and the Giant Peach
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Unit 1, Words to Know
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List 9
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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.
See Examples For:
He makes bleak comedies about strivers with shiv-like gags that make you wheeze in pain.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 20, 2025
Alesya’s dog really does wheeze when it walks.
From BBC ● Aug. 3, 2024
But three days into a string of seven-hour rehearsals, her voice collapsed, the high notes so long her hallmark dissolving into a pitchy wheeze.
From New York Times ● May 30, 2024
“This repertoire — with its contrapuntal extravaganzas, its antiphonal balances, its espousal of instruments that chuff and wheeze and speak directly to a microphone — was made for stereo,” he wrote.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2024
I recognized the sounds of a carnival in the distance: the arrhythmic wheeze of pipe organs, the dull roar of a crowd.
From "Hollow City" by Ransom Riggs
Such wheezes aren’t the most salient feature of the screenplay, though.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
They communicate through grunts, bellows and wheezes, a form of vocalization that plays a crucial role in the dynamics of the group.
From Salon ● Mar. 22, 2024
Guitars flutter, an accordion wheezes and a singer unwinds the triumphant tale of Fernando Ochoa Jauregui, a Modesto-area builder of food trucks and trailers.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 23, 2024
Whatever cunning wheezes No 10 conjures up, the hole the Conservatives need to climb out of is very deep.
From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2023
It created a cacophony of hacking coughs, bronchial rattles, asthmatic wheezes, consumptive croaks.
From "Angela's Ashes: A Memoir" by Frank McCourt
But I’m the kind of person who trained for, and wheezed his way through, a cycling tour of Provence with his dad, but who almost never rode to work.
From Slate ● Jun. 18, 2023
It started in mid-September with Vance, 5, who came down with RSV and wheezed so badly that his skin was pulling in and out of his ribs with every breath.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 15, 2022
At Detroit Country Day School, the football team wheezed its way up a steep slope known simply as “The Hill” on the backside of the leafy campus.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 15, 2022
A neighborhood resident wore a respirator inside his apartment and still wheezed for an hour with asthma.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 25, 2020
“Now look, you spoiled little child,” he wheezed.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
"She is wheezing," Markos tells the nurse in the video, cradling the poorly chicken with a worried expression on his face.
From BBC ● Jun. 19, 2026
Symptoms can appear within seconds, and include swelling of the throat, wheezing, coughing and difficulty breathing.
From BBC ● Jun. 13, 2026
If inhaled at high levels, these fumes can aggravate a person’s lungs, causing coughing, wheezing and chest tightness.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2026
It’s like the quarterback and homecoming queen losing a popularity contest to a wheezing weirdo.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 28, 2025
The breath escaped his lips in wheezing sighs.
From "The Darkest Minds" by Alexandra Bracken
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.
