suffocate

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“
"They would first suffocate, and later their bodies would be swallowed up in the stomach of the earth."

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Definitions (23)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (7)

  1. transitive verb To kill or destroy by preventing access of air or oxygen.
  2. transitive verb To impair the respiration of; asphyxiate.
  3. transitive verb To cause discomfort to by or as if by cutting off the supply of fresh air.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (6)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

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Examples (50)

  • But if they tie something around your neck and you suffocate, they figure you just died They don't understand what suffocation is, so they don't believe it is anything they caused. —  054 - Ost
  • They got into a metro train so crowded Sean thought he was going to suffocate, and rocketed through the city. —  InterzoneScienceFictionandFantasyMagazine#214
  • But the force kept pushing on me until I thought I would suffocate, as if there was more of him than usual and there wasn't room inside my skin for both of us. —  Chance, Karen - Touch the Dark
  • Red and yellow signs on it warned that she was going to get cancer, suffocate, or die other horrible deaths if she opened the door…but she did it anyway. —  GlassHouses
  • Before you slow enough to awake you'll either suffocate or be eaten alive by the piranhawks. —  Magazine - Analog Science Fiction And Fact - 2007 - Issue 03 - March (v1.0) [lit]
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same contextWord Family

suffocate:   suffocating ·  suffocated
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Latin suffōcāre, suffōcāt- : sub-, sub- + faucēs, throat.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Latin suffocatus, past participle of suffocare (later Italian soffogare, soffocare = Portuguese suffocar = Spanish sufocar = French suffoquer), choke, stifle, from sub, under, + faux (fauc-), the upper part of the throat, the pharynx: see fauces.
  2. from Latin suffocatus, past participle: see the verb.
 

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/ˈsəfəkeɪt/
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