asphyxiate

/æˈsfɪksiˌeɪt/

Other forms: asphyxiating; asphyxiated; asphyxiates

To asphyxiate is to keep someone from breathing — to suffocate or smother them. Choking on a piece of food can asphyxiate a person.

Your body needs to breathe oxygen in order to function, and when it's deprived of oxygen that's called asphyxia or asphyxiation. If a person stops being able to breathe, you can also say they asphyxiate. The origin of this verb is asphyxia, "stopping of the pulse," in Greek, which originally had the same meaning in English, before it came to mean "suffocation."

Definitions of asphyxiate

1. verb

   deprive of oxygen and prevent from breathing
   synonyms: smother, suffocate

   stifle, suffocate

   be asphyxiated; die from lack of oxygen

   type of:

   kill

   cause to die; put to death, usually intentionally or knowingly
2. verb

   impair the respiration of or obstruct the air passage of
   synonyms: choke, stifle, suffocate

   type of:

   block, close up, impede, jam, obstruct, obturate, occlude

   block passage through
3. verb

   be asphyxiated; die from lack of oxygen
   synonyms: stifle, suffocate

   smother, suffocate

   deprive of oxygen and prevent from breathing

   types:

   strangle

   die from strangulation

   type of:

   buy the farm, cash in one's chips, choke, conk, croak, decease, die, drop dead, exit, expire, give-up the ghost, go, kick the bucket, pass, pass away, perish, pop off, snuff it

   pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life