suffocate
- 01 B2 Upper Intermediate
to have great difficulty breathing, often because a room is too hot or crowded.
to experience difficulty in breathing or a sensation of being unable to inhale sufficient oxygen.
Simple“Open a window please; I feel like I am suffocating in this heat.”
In context“The crowded auditorium was so poorly ventilated that several attendees felt they were suffocating and had to step outside for fresh air.”
- 02 C1 Advanced
to stop something from developing or growing by covering it or taking away what it needs.
to prevent the development or growth of something by depriving it of necessary conditions or space.
Simple“The weeds in the garden will suffocate the small flowers if you do not pull them out.”
In context“Economists argued that the new regulations would suffocate innovation by imposing excessive costs on small start-up companies.”
Synonyms
“Larger ones would have survived the initial ashfall but slowly suffocated as the dust covered their food supply and became airborne.”
“Suddenly Napoli found themselves suffocated by a blanket of red.”
The adjective is first attested in the 1420s, the verb in 1526; from Middle English suffocat(e) (“deprived of air, suffocated”), borrowed from Latin suffōcātus, the perfect passive participle of Latin suffōcō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from sub- (“under, up to”) + fōx (“throat”, oblique stem in fōc-). Participial usage up until Early Modern English.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.