WordWeb Online

1. Deprive of oxygen and prevent from breathing
   "Othello asphyxiated Desdemona with a pillow"
   - smother, suffocate
    
2. Impair the respiration of or obstruct the air passage of
   "The foul air was slowly asphyxiating the children"
   - suffocate, stifle, choke
    
3. Be asphyxiated; die from lack of oxygen
   "The child asphyxiated under the pillow"
   - suffocate, stifle

Derived forms: asphyxiated, asphyxiates, asphyxiating

See also: asphyxia, asphyxiation

Type of: block, buy the farm [N. Amer], cash in one's chips, choke, close up, conk, croak, decease, die, drop dead, exit, expire, give-up the ghost, go, impede, jam, kick the bucket, kill, obstruct, obturate, occlude, pass, pass away, perish, pop off, pop one's clogs, snuff it

Encyclopedia: Asphyxiate