inhale
[in-heyl]
- to breathe in; draw in by breathing: to inhale the polluted air.
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- to breathe in, especially the smoke of cigarettes, cigars, etc.: Do you inhale when you smoke?
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Origin of inhale
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for inhale
Contemporary Examples
If you tend to inhale your food without realizing how much you consumed, opt for nibbles like in-shell pistachio nuts.
TB, for example, is spread when I inhale the exhaled breath of a person with active disease.
They emit an odor that no human being should inhale, and yet you have.
Whatever You Do Someone Will Die. A Short Story About Impossible Choices in IraqNathan Bradley Bethea
August 31, 2014
So of course, Jimmy Fallon took the opportunity to ruin it by forcing Freeman to inhale helium and pitch up his voice.
But inhale the fumes of Republican rhetoric more deeply, and a more mind-blowing reality comes into focus.
Historical Examples
Not because, as some people tell you, they are made of inferior tobacco, but because you inhale them.
Garrison's FinishW. B. M. Ferguson
Is it not an ardent desire to inhale a portion of the being we love?
The Memoires of Casanova, CompleteJacques Casanova de Seingalt
That the dead may arise and inhale the incense of offerings.
The Religion of Babylonia and AssyriaMorris Jastrow
Why, you would cease to inhale the breath of life itself, for his sake.
The Strange Adventures of Mr. MiddletonWardon Allan Curtis
Let me for a while inhale the breath of an invigorating literature.
inhale
- to draw (breath) into the lungs; breathe in
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Word Origin
C18: from in- ² + Latin halāre to breathe
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for inhale
v.
1725, "to breathe in," back-formation from inhalation or else from Latin inhalare "breathe upon," from in- "upon" (see in- (2)) + halare "breathe." Related: Inhaled; inhaling. Current sense is because the word was taken as the opposite of exhale. Slang sense of "eat rapidly" is recorded from 1924. As a noun, by 1934. Related: Inhaled; inhaling.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
inhale
(ĭn-hāl′)- To breathe in; inspire.
- To draw something such as smoke or a medicinal mist into the lungs by breathing; inspire.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.