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1. Causing difficulty in breathing especially through lack of fresh air and presence of heat
   "the room was suffocating--hot and airless";
   - smothering, suffocative, choking

1. Deprive of oxygen and prevent from breathing
   "The child suffocated herself with a plastic bag that the parents had left on the floor";
   - smother, asphyxiate
    
2. Impair the respiration of or obstruct the air passage of
   "The foul air was slowly suffocating the children";
   - stifle, asphyxiate, choke
    
3. Become stultified, suppressed, or stifled
   "He is suffocating--living at home with his aged parents in the small village";
   - choke
    
4. Suppress the development, creativity, or imagination of
   "His job suffocated him";
   - choke
    
5. Be asphyxiated; die from lack of oxygen
   "The child suffocated under the pillow";
   - stifle, asphyxiate
    
6. Feel uncomfortable for lack of fresh air
   "The room was hot and stuffy and we were suffocating"
    
7. Struggle for breath; have insufficient oxygen intake
   "he swallowed a fishbone and suffocated";
   - gag, choke, strangle

See also: breathless, dyspeic, dyspneal [N. Amer], dyspneic [Brit, N. Amer], dyspnoeal [Brit, Cdn], dyspnoeic [Brit, Cdn], dyspoeic

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

Encyclopedia: Suffocating