suffocating

CEFRB2

/ˈsʌfəkeɪtɪŋ/

adjective · verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
adjective
Making it difficult or impossible to breathe.
02
adjective
Extra detail
Synonym of suffocation.

Examples

This room's so small and hot that I'm suffocating.
Why is it so suffocating to live in Modena?

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses: 4
Parts of speech: 2
Citations: 5
Synonyms: 1

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meaning

That tends to suffocate the target(s); so overwhelming and lethal or life-threatening as to suffocate; suffocative.

verb

Extra meaning

present participle and gerund of suffocate

More examples

In context

Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gaspings and shriekings and suffocatings.

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

The thick smoke created a blank atmosphere that made breathing very difficult.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Citations

The word in print, with each source given in full.

Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gaspings and shriekings and suffocatings.
1895 October 3, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “How to Tell a Story”, in How to Tell a Story and Other Essays, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, publis...
It is difficult to conceive a state of society in which a sufficient number of disinterested and civilized and imaginative people would, even if given the chance, voluntarily undertake what would be to them the suffocating boredom of government.
1427, Hesketh Pearson, The Life of Oscar Wilde, Penguin Books in Association with Methuen, page 165
On the sudden outburst of a great fire, the passages are commonly filled with suffocating smoke, and often with flame, which render the hydrants in the internal passages inaccessible, and generally cut off communication with superior reservoirs, and of this there have been frequent large instances.
1877, Great Britain Parliament, Journal of the Society of Arts, Volume 25, The Society., page 442
"From the Thursday before to that Time he was dying of an hard Cough and a suffocating Asthma with a Fever; but he felt no great Pain; he had the sweet Composure and easy Departure, for which he had entreated so often and fervently the sovereign Disposer of all Things.
1885, Clifford Kenyon Shipton, John Langdon Sibley, Sibley's Harvard Graduates, Massachusetts Historical Society, page 40
But during this siege it is certain that Greek fire was used with dreadful effect upon the Turks, driving them back with its fierce flame and suffocating smoke as they attempted to cross the ditch and scale the walls, destroying their platforms and ladders, and consuming even the bodies of the dead.
1895, John Foxe, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Charles Foster Publishing Company, pages 222-223

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