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asphyxiate

[as-fik-see-eyt] / æsˈfɪk siˌeɪt /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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The allegations were released Thursday by Haiti’s antigovernment corruption unit, whose general director, Hans Joseph, pledged to go after those who “torpedo the public treasury and asphyxiate the country’s economic and social development efforts.”

From Seattle Times Aug. 26, 2022

Avalanche victims can asphyxiate from breathing in carbon monoxide from their own exhalation while buried beneath the snow.

From Los Angeles Times Mar. 8, 2021

While white phosphorus has toxic chemical properties, it is not generally used to poison or asphyxiate, the common aim of chemical weapons.

From The Guardian Dec. 18, 2019

They now dominate the culture so thoroughly that they threaten to asphyxiate it.

From New York Times Oct. 16, 2019

Poor engine hates it—coughing and spluttering the whole way—suppose I’m lucky I didn’t asphyxiate in the exhaust.

From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein

Told that methylene chloride asphyxiates people at high enough levels, he said he didn’t want to talk about it.

From Slate Sep. 21, 2015

Their action takes place against cityscapes so steeped in shadowy, gas-lit mystique the reader practically asphyxiates.

From Slate Nov. 30, 2012

Stanley Greenfield, however, cynically argues that the revolt against the car may not take place until a thermal inversion, combined with a traffic jam out of Godard's Weekend, asphyxiates thousands on a freeway to nowhere.

From Time Magazine Archive

Be frank with Polk as to how much he asphyxiates me?

From The Tinder-Box by Daviess, Maria Thompson

Ninety-nine out of every hundred people who visit picture galleries need to be delivered from that "museum atmosphere" which envelops works of art and asphyxiates beholders.

From Art by Bell, Clive

It’s a fitting way to conclude an experience that’s like being slowly asphyxiated by puffy clouds of baby powder.

From The Wall Street Journal Mar. 12, 2026

Victor had been dealing with breathing issues, and she wonders whether the heavy smoke might have asphyxiated him.

From Los Angeles Times Jan. 10, 2025

When Lake Nyos erupted in 1986, it asphyxiated nearly 2,000 people and wiped out four villages in Cameroon.

From National Geographic Jan. 18, 2024

For decades, many experts thought they asphyxiated amid the massive clouds of ash belched from the volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

From Science Magazine Aug. 22, 2023

Even if it does manage to sprout, it can be choked by weeds, rooted up by a dog, mashed by a soccer ball, or asphyxiated by car exhaust.

From "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson

She and others worry that it could be even trickier with CO2 — an odorless, asphyxiating gas.

From Los Angeles Times Oct. 22, 2024

Daily updates from energy traders drop into their email inboxes, showing the asphyxiating upward climb of prices for the natural gas and electricity that power their energy-devouring business.

From Seattle Times Sep. 8, 2022

As factories grew up across the city, the air outside became just as asphyxiating.

From Salon Jun. 4, 2022

In large quantities, these dinoflagellate species secrete an asphyxiating toxin that can kill fish, birds, and marine mammals.

From Textbooks Jan. 1, 2015

If just one of them moved, I thought, the domino effect could engulf the three of us in an asphyxiating mass of literature.

From "Looking for Alaska" by John Green




Vocabulary lists containing asphyxiate


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