suffocating

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suf·fo·cate

(sŭf′ə-kāt′)

v. suf·fo·cat·ed, suf·fo·cat·ing, suf·fo·cates

v.tr.

1. To kill or destroy by preventing access of air or oxygen.

2. To impair the breathing of or cause discomfort to by cutting off the supply of fresh air.

3. To suppress the development, imagination, or creativity of; stifle: "The rigid formality of the place suffocated her" (William Makepeace Thackeray).

v.intr.

1. To die from lack of air or oxygen.

2. To feel discomfort from lack of fresh air.

3. To become or feel oppressed; be stifled.

[Latin suffōcāre, suffōcāt- : sub-, sub- + faucēs, throat.]

suf′fo·ca′ting·ly adv.

suf′fo·ca′tion n.

suf′fo·ca′tive adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Adj.

suffocating - causing difficulty in breathing especially through lack of fresh air and presence of heat; "the choking June dust"; "the smothering soft voices"; "smothering heat"; "the room was suffocating--hot and airless"

smothering, suffocative

breathless, dyspneal, dyspneic, dyspnoeal, dyspnoeic - not breathing or able to breathe except with difficulty; "breathless at thought of what I had done"; "breathless from running"; "followed the match with breathless interest"

Translations

αποπνικτικός

soffocante

suffocating

[ˈsʌfəkeɪtɪŋ] ADJ

1. (= choking) [heat] → sofocante, agobiante; [fumes, smell] → asfixiante
the suffocating heat of the day → el calor sofocante or agobiante del día
it's suffocating in here → hace un calor sofocante or agobiante aquí dentro

2. (= oppressive) [atmosphere, life, relationship] → agobiante; [regime] → opresivo
the suffocating atmosphere of life in the country → el ambiente agobiante de la vida en el campo

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

suffocating

adj (lit) → erstickend attr; heat → drückend attr, → brütend attr; room → stickig; (fig) relationship, atmosphere → erdrückend attr; it’s suffocating in here → es ist stickig hier drinnen, hier erstickt man fast; intellectually suffocating → geisttötend

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

suffocating

[ˈsʌfəˌkeɪtɪŋ] adj (heat, atmosphere) → soffocante, opprimente

Collins Italian Dictionary 1st Edition © HarperCollins Publishers 1995

References in classic literature ?

"They have fired the pits ahead." "We are hemmed in by flames in front and flood behind." "Help, John Carter; we are suffocating," and then there swept back upon us at the rear a wave of dense smoke that sent us, stumbling and blinded, into a choking retreat.

The fire and smoke were to be feared a thousand times over the water, and so I seized upon the first gallery which led out of and up from the suffocating smoke that was engulfing us.

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It was so good to open up one's lungs and take in whole luscious barrels-ful of the blessed God's untainted, dew-fashioned, woodland- scented air once more, after suffocating body and mind for two days and nights in the moral and physical stenches of that intolerable old buzzard-roost!

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THE shed was almost quite full of feathers--it was almost suffocating; but it was comfortable and very soft.

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Every one has experienced the sensation the above remark conveys; there is hardly a person who, in the midst of a nightmare whose influence is suffocating, has not said to himself, by the help of that light which still burns in the brain when every human light is extinguished, "It is nothing but a dream, after all." This was precisely what Louis XIV.

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So soundly did Jerry sleep, that when the rain, having robbed the atmosphere of its last breath of wind, ceased and left the stateroom a steaming, suffocating furnace, he did not know when Skipper, panting for air, his loin cloth and undershirt soaked with sweat, arose, tucked blanket and pillow under his arm, and went on deck.

In the struggle to breathe he, all unlearned in the ways of the sea, lifted his muzzle high in the air to get out of the suffocating welter.

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I was choking and suffocating by the time I reached Wolf Larsen's bunk.

How long she had been there in that suffocating atmosphere I could not guess.

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Still, though the jail resounded with shrieks and cries for help,--though the fire bounded up as if each separate flame had had a tiger's life, and roared as though, in every one, there were a hungry voice--though the heat began to grow intense, and the air suffocating, and the clamour without increased, and the danger of his situation even from one merciless element was every moment more extreme,--still he was afraid to raise his voice again, lest the crowd should break in, and should, of their own ears or from the information given them by the other prisoners, get the clue to his place of confinement.

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'Come here!' he says, 'Come here, everybody; hang'd if this fool hasn't been trying to fill up a house with acorns!' They all came a-swooping down like a blue cloud, and as each fellow lit on the door and took a glance, the whole absurdity of the contract that that first jay had tackled hit him home and he fell over backward suffocating with laughter, and the next jay took his place and done the same.