suffocate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin suffōcātus,^[2][3][4][5] the past participle of suffōcō (“to choke, stifle”),^{[2][6][4][5][7]} from sub- and faucēs (“throat, narrow entrance”).^{[2][6][8][4][9]} The change of the Latin diphthong to ō is put down to dialect by Klein,^[5] and the origin of faucēs is unknown.^[10][9] Barnhart and Etymonline say that the Latin verb originally meant to narrow up,^[9][3] and Ayto that the English word is etymologically to press down someone's throat.^[10] Barnhart takes the verb as probably a back-formation from the earlier suffocation,^[9] which is recorded before 1400 as inherited from Middle English suffocacioun, from Old French suffocation and directly from Latin suffōcātiō.^[9][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Suffocated by deprivation of air: before 1464, as a past-participial adjective, in Capgrave's Abbreuiacion of Cronicles.^[2][11] The verb is first recorded in 1526, in Bonde's Pylgrimage of Perfection, of stifling something immaterial.^[2] Etymonline and Merriam-Webster Unabridged put the verb back in the 15th century,^[3][4] and the Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English in the late 15th.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

The adjective also meant smothered or overwhelmed from 1471 to 1609,^[2][11] as in Shakespeare's "This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking".^[11][13] The verb's record likewise begins with a figurative use, the stifling of a mental quality, in 1526.^[2] The smothering of something material follows in 1584, in Scot's Discouerie of Witchcraft,^[2] and the killing of a person or animal by stopping the breath only in 1599, in a translation of Gaebelkhover's Boock of Physicke.^[2][9] The narrower sense of impeding the breath or throttling the windpipe appears before 1616 in Shakespeare's Henry V: "let not hemp his windpipe suffocate", which Johnson (1755) quoted for choking by shutting out air.^[2][4][13] The intransitive use, to become choked, is recorded from 1702, in Defoe's Mock Mourners, and the OED marks it rare.^[2][3] Collins and Merriam-Webster Unabridged now also give the milder sense of feeling discomfort from heat and bad air.^[14][4]

Timeline

• before 1464 – adjective, suffocated by lack of air (obsolete by 1632).^[2]
• 1471 – adjective, smothered, overwhelmed (obsolete by 1609).^[2]
• 1526 – verb, to stifle something immaterial.^[2]
• 1584 – to smother something physical.^[2]
• 1599 – to kill by stopping the breath.^[2][9]
• before 1616 – to impede breathing, to choke.^[2]
• 1702 – intransitive, to become choked.^[2][3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To kill by cutting off oxygen or air; to die in this way: The fumes suffocated two miners.^[14][4][2]
2. To block the air passages or impede the breathing of; to choke.^[14][2]
3. To feel, or make someone feel, discomfort from heat and lack of fresh air: We were suffocating in the crowded attic.^[14][4]
4. To hold back the growth or activity of something, as if by depriving it of air; to stifle or smother: Red tape suffocated the new venture.^[4][2]

Adjective

1. (obsolete, before 1464–1632) Suffocated by lack of air.^[2][11]
2. (obsolete, 1471–1609) Smothered, overwhelmed.^[2][11]

Word family

• suffocatingly
• suffocation
• suffocative

Related words

• faucal
• fauces

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
11. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins