suffocate

From Latin suffocatus, past participle of suffocare (“to choke, stifle”), from sub (“under”) + faux (“the upper part of the throat, the pharynx”).

suffocate (third-person singular simple present suffocates, present participle suffocating, simple past and past participle suffocated)

1. (ergative) To suffer, or cause someone to suffer, from severely reduced oxygen intake to the body.

   Open the hatch, he is suffocating in the airlock!

2. (ergative) To die due to, or kill someone by means of, insufficient oxygen supply to the body.

   He suffocated his wife by holding a pillow over her head.

   • Shakespeare

     Let not hemp his windpipe suffocate.

3. (ergative, figuratively) To overwhelm, or be overwhelmed (by a person or issue), as though with oxygen deprivation.

   I'm suffocating under this huge workload.

4. (transitive) To destroy; to extinguish.

   to suffocate fire

• (To suffer from reduced oxygen): asphyxiate, choke
• (To die from insufficient oxygen): stifle, choke
• (To be overwhelmed): drown
• (To reduce oxygen supply): asphyxiate, choke, smother
• (To kill by deprivation of oxygen): asphyxiate, choke, stifle
• (To make weary with contact): smother

• suffocation

• asphyxia

suffocate (comparative more suffocate, superlative most suffocate)

1. (obsolete) Suffocated; choked.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Shakespeare to this entry?)

• suffocate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• suffocate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• suffocate at OneLook Dictionary Search

• offuscate

suffōcāte

1. second-person plural present active imperative of suffōcō