soffocare

Forms

soffocare (first-person singular present sòffoco, first-person singular past historic soffocài, past participle soffocàto, auxiliary (transitive) avére or (intransitive) èssere)^[1] Older and regional forms are soffogare and suffocare.^[2][3][4] Old Venetian and Trentino have stofegar, crossed with stufare.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin suffōcō (“to choke, strangle”).^[6][7][8][1] Prati marks it as not a popular word, beside the popular soffogare with the voiced consonant.^[9] The Latin verb is formed from sub- (“under”) and faux (“throat”), usually in the plural fauces.^[6][7][10] Nocentini starts from the variant fōcēs (“throat”), with the rustic /oː/ for /au/ that Devoto dates to Republican times.^[11][12] The same noun gave affogare, fauci and foce.^[11] The origin of faux is unknown.^[13]

Related forms are Old Occitan sofogar and sofocar, Catalan sofocar (reflexive also meaning to blush with shame), Spanish sofocar and the learned French suffoquer.^[5][14][4]

The present is stressed on the first syllable, ⟨sòffoco⟩.^[1][8] Devoto explains this stress by attraction to soffio, in place of an expected stress on the second syllable.^[12] Tommaseo noted that ⟨soffogare⟩ kept the stress of the Latin, ⟨soffógo⟩.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

GRADIT and Zingarelli date the word to before 1292.^[7][8] The earliest sense DELI dates is figurative: in Domenico Cavalca (before 1342) it means to keep something from showing or developing.^[6] DELI notes that the form soffogare quoted by the dictionaries from a manuscript of the Declamazioni of Quintilian cannot be checked or dated.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The literal senses are recorded later than the figurative one: putting out a fire by cutting off the air (Biringuccio, before 1537), crushing something by depriving it of air and light (Roseo, 1592), and, in the first Crusca dictionary of 1612, stopping someone's breathing or killing someone so.^[6] The intransitive and reflexive use, “to be unable to breathe”, appears as suffogarsi in 1494 and as soffocare in Petrocchi's dictionary of 1891.^[6]

Tommaseo's examples show the figurative range of the 19th century: stifling an affection, the voice of conscience, the cries of peoples, or a quarrel.^[6][15] The present participle soffocante has been used of oppressive heat since at least 1873, and gas soffocante names a chemical weapon that attacks the airways (1960).^[6] Sòffoco “sultry heat” (1881) came from Milanese sòfoch, from sofegà “to suffocate”.^[9]

Timeline

• Before 1292 – First record according to GRADIT and Zingarelli.^[7][8]
• Before 1342 – Domenico Cavalca uses the verb in the sense “to keep from showing”.^[6]
• c. 1350 – Soffocazione appears in the Italian Crescenzi.^[6]
• 1494 – Suffogarsi “to choke” appears in the Fasciculo di medicina volgare.^[6]
• Before 1537 – Vannoccio Biringuccio uses suffocarsi of a fire put out for lack of air.^[6]
• 1612 – The first Crusca dictionary records the sense “to stop breathing; to kill by suffocation”.^[6]
• 1873 – Tommaseo records caldo soffocante.^[6]
• 1960 – Gas soffocante is recorded.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To suffocate, smother: to stop someone breathing, especially so as to kill.^[7][2][10]
2. (transitive) To make breathing hard;^[7][2][3] (figurative) to oppress, weigh on: il fumo della stufa ci soffocava.^[7][2][3]
3. (transitive) To put out a fire by cutting off the air.^[7][2][8]
4. (transitive) Of plants, to choke other plants by taking their light and food.^[7][2][3]
5. (transitive, figurative) To stifle, suppress: to stop something spreading or coming out, to hush up a scandal, put down a revolt or hold back a feeling: soffocare la protesta degli studenti.^[7][2][8]
6. (intransitive, also soffocarsi) To choke, be unable to breathe, die of suffocation: nel vagone si soffocava.^[7][10][3]

Word family

• soffocamento
• soffocante
• soffocato
• soffocazione
• soffocatore
• soffocabile
• soffochio
• soffoco

Related words

• affogare
• fauci
• foce
• soffogare
• Latin suffoco

Usage notes

The transitive verb takes avere, the intransitive essere.^[1][8] Soffogare survives as an old and regional form.^[2][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Devoto, Giacomo; Oli, Gian Carlo; Serianni, Luca; Trifone, Maurizio (2026), Nuovo Devoto–Oli: il vocabolario dell'italiano contemporaneo, digital ed., Milano: Le Monnier
3. ^ a b c d e f Duro, Aldo (ed.) (1986–1994), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Roma: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana; online ed. treccani.it/vocabolario (2008 copy)
4. ^ a b c Battisti, Carlo; Alessio, Giovanni (1950–1957), Dizionario etimologico italiano, 5 vols., Firenze: Barbèra (reprint 1975), p. 3526
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k De Mauro, Tullio (ed.) (2003), Grande dizionario italiano dell'uso, CD-ROM version 2.0, Torino: UTET
8. ^ a b c d e f g Zingarelli, Nicola (2009), Lo Zingarelli 2010: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Bologna: Zanichelli
9. ^ a b Prati, Angelico (1951), Vocabolario etimologico italiano, Milano: Garzanti, p. 925
10. ^ a b c Sabatini, Francesco; Coletti, Vittorio; Manfredini, Manuela (2026), Dizionario italiano Sabatini Coletti, digital ed., Milano: Sansoni / Rizzoli Larousse
11. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
12. ^ a b Devoto, Giacomo (1968), Avviamento alla etimologia italiana: dizionario etimologico, 2nd ed., Firenze: Le Monnier, p. 412
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ Körting, Gustav (1907), Lateinisch-romanisches Wörterbuch: etymologisches Wörterbuch der romanischen Hauptsprachen, 3rd ed., Paderborn: Schöningh
15. ^ a b Tommaseo, Niccolò; Bellini, Bernardo (1861–1879), Dizionario della lingua italiana, 4 vols., Torino: UTET