respire
verb (used without object)
to inhale and exhale air for the purpose of maintaining life; breathe.
respiring
-
present participleof respire.present participle
A verb form that is used in progressive verb constructions and may also function as a modifier or a gerund.
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.
When respiring animals were only a few cells thick, they could count on diffusion to satisfy their needs for oxygen.
From Scientific American ● May 6, 2019
Their role as predators can even help with carbon dynamics, keeping carbon locked up in marine sediments, or by controlling the amount of respiring biomass in our seas.
From Salon ● Dec. 15, 2018
Roberts’s abdominal cavity looked like the inside of a mossy, yellow cave lit up by miners’ headlamps; vasculature appeared like streaks of mineral ore, the liver like a respiring troglobite.
From The New Yorker ● Sep. 19, 2016
As carbon pours into the bucket through photosynthesis, it constantly leaks out through other processes, mostly decomposition and respiring plants and microbes.
From US News ● Apr. 18, 2011
With this, we were off to an explosive developmental stage in which great varieties of respiring life, including the multicellular forms, became feasible.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
