Word.ws English Dictionary

irrespirable

Syllables: ir·re·spir·a·ble/ɪɹɪˈspaɪɹəb(ə)l/

irrespirable adjective: not respirable; not suitable for breathing; unbreathable.

Adjective

irrespirable (not comparable)

  1. Not respirable; not suitable for breathing; unbreathable.
    • The air was growing fouler and more irrespirable, with a thick, sodden quality, as if from a sediment of material rottenness; and we had about decided to turn back.1932 May, Clark Ashton Smith, “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis”, in Farnsworth Wright, editor, Weird Tales: A Magazine of the Bizarre and Unusual, volume XIX, number 5, Indianapolis, Ind.: Popular Fiction...

Synonyms of irrespirable

Antonyms

Origin of irrespirable

Either: * from ir- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + respirable; or * borrowed from French irrespirable, from Late Latin irrespīrābilis, from Latin ir- (a variant of in- (prefix meaning ‘not’)) + respīrāre + -ābilis (suffix meaning ‘able to be’). Respīrāre is the present active infinitive of respīrō (“to blow or breathe back; to breathe, respire; to breathe out, exhale”), from re- (prefix meaning ‘again; back, backwards’) + spīrō (“to blow; to breathe, respire; to breathe out, exhale”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peys- (“to blow; to breathe”)).

Questions about irrespirable

What does irrespirable mean?
Irrespirable means not respirable; not suitable for breathing; unbreathable.
What part of speech is irrespirable?
Irrespirable is an adjective.
How do you pronounce irrespirable?
Irrespirable is pronounced /ɪɹɪˈspaɪɹəb(ə)l/ (UK).

Words near irrespirable in the dictionary

  1. irresolved
  2. irresolvedly
  3. irrespective
  4. irrespective of
  5. irrespectively
  6. irrespirable
  7. irresponsibilism
  8. irresponsibilist
  9. irresponsibilists
  10. irresponsibilities
  11. irresponsibility

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: irrespirable (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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