smother

[smuhth-er]

verb (used with object)

1. to stifle or suffocate, as by smoke or other means of preventing free breathing.

2. to extinguish or deaden (fire, coals, etc.) by covering so as to exclude air.

3. to cover closely or thickly; envelop.

   to smother a steak with mushrooms.

4. to suppress or repress.

   to smother feelings.

5. Cooking.,  to steam (food) slowly in a heavy, tightly closed vessel with a minimum of liquid.

   smothered chicken and onions.

verb (used without object)

1. to become stifled or suffocated; be prevented from breathing.

2. to be stifled; be suppressed or concealed.

noun

1. dense, stifling smoke.

2. a smoking or smoldering state, as of burning matter.

3. dust, fog, spray, etc., in a dense or enveloping cloud.

4. an overspreading profusion of anything.

   a smother of papers.

smother

/ ˈsmʌðə /

verb

1. to suffocate or stifle by cutting off or being cut off from the air

2. (tr) to surround (with) or envelop (in)

   he smothered her with love

3. (tr) to extinguish (a fire) by covering so as to cut it off from the air

4. to be or cause to be suppressed or stifled

   smother a giggle

5. (tr) to cook or serve (food) thickly covered with sauce, etc

noun

1. anything, such as a cloud of smoke, that stifles

2. a profusion or turmoil

3. archaic,  a state of smouldering or a smouldering fire

Other Word Forms

• smotherable adjective
• half-smothered adjective
• unsmotherable adjective
• unsmothered adjective
• unsmothering adjective
• smothery adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of smother¹

1125–75; (noun) Middle English smorther dense smoke; akin to Old English smorian to suffocate; (v.) Middle English smo ( r ) theren, derivative of the noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of smother¹

Old English smorian to suffocate; related to Middle Low German smōren

Example Sentences

Then she buried her head under a pillow, from which some sort of unidentifiable, repetitive, smothered sound—weeping? sneezing? giggling?—could be heard.

Read more on Literature

Valerie, sick with the flu, had been awakened by a night nurse, who informed her that she, the night nurse, had rolled on top of the baby in her sleep and smothered him.

Read more on Literature

Critics fear deep-sea mining will smother marine life with waste and the noise of heavy machinery will disrupt oceanic migrations.

Read more on Barron's

I like the oven style chicken burrito smothered.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Those leaves will smother the grass as they insulate the ground and hold in moisture.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• choke 
• douse 
• envelop 
• overwhelm 
• quash 
• quell 
• snuff 
• squelch 
• stifle 
• strangle 
• suffocate 
• suppress 
• surround