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. Be asphyxiated; die from lack of oxygen
   "The child suffocated under the pillow";
   - stifle, asphyxiate
    
2. Struggle for breath; have insufficient oxygen intake
   "The runner suffocated in the thin mountain air";
   - gag, choke, strangle
    
3. Feel uncomfortable for lack of fresh air
   "The room was hot and stuffy and we were suffocating"
    
4. 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
    
5. Impair the respiration of or obstruct the air passage of
   "The foul air was slowly suffocating the children";
   - stifle, asphyxiate, choke
    
6. Become stultified, suppressed, or stifled
   "He is suffocating — living at home with his aged parents in the small village";
   - choke
    
7. Suppress the development, creativity, or imagination of
   "His job suffocated him";
   - choke

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

Type of: ache, become, block, buy the farm [N. Amer, informal], cash in [informal], cash in one's chips [informal], close up, conk [informal], cop it [Brit, informal], croak [informal], dampen, decease [archaic], die, drop dead [informal], 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, pass on, perish, pop off [informal], pop one's clogs [informal], snuff it [informal], stifle, suffer, turn

Encyclopedia: Suffocating