suffocating

/ˈsʌfəkeɪtɪŋ/

suffocating is the present participle and gerund of suffocate.

Meaning of suffocate

suffocate (third-person singular simple present suffocates, present participle suffocating, simple past and past participle suffocated)

(ergative) To suffer, or cause someone to suffer, from severely reduced oxygen intake to the body.
- Open the hatch, he is suffocating in the airlock!
Synonyms:

asphyxiate, choke
(ergative) To die due to, or kill someone by means of, insufficient oxygen supply to the body.
- He suffocated his wife by holding a pillow over her head.
Synonyms:

stifle, choke, asphyxiate, smother
(ergative, figuratively) To overwhelm, or be overwhelmed (by a person or issue), as though with oxygen deprivation.
- I'm suffocating under this huge workload.
Synonyms:

drown, asphyxiate, choke, stifle
(transitive) To destroy; to extinguish.
- to suffocate fire

suffocating (plural suffocatings)

Synonym of suffocation.
- Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gaspings and shriekings and suffocatings.1895 October 3, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], “How to Tell a Story”, in How to Tell a Story and Other Essays, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers, published 1898, →OCLC...
Synonyms:

suffocation

suffocating (comparative more suffocating, superlative most suffocating)

That tends to suffocate the target(s); so overwhelming and lethal or life-threatening as to suffocate; suffocative.
- It is difficult to conceive a state of society in which a sufficient number of disinterested and civilized and imaginative people would, even if given the chance, voluntarily undertake what would be to them the suffocating boredom of government.1427, Hesketh Pearson, The Life of Oscar Wilde, Penguin Books in Association with Methuen, page 165
- On the sudden outburst of a great fire, the passages are commonly filled with suffocating smoke, and often with flame, which render the hydrants in the internal passages inaccessible, and generally cut off communication with superior reservoirs, and of this there have been frequent large instances.1877, Great Britain Parliament, Journal of the Society of Arts, Volume 25, The Society., page 442

What does suffocating mean?: Suffocating means synonym of suffocation.
What is suffocating the present participle and gerund of?: Suffocating is the present participle and gerund of suffocate.
What part of speech is suffocating?: Suffocating can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce suffocating?: Suffocating is pronounced /ˈsʌfəkeɪtɪŋ/.
What is the plural of suffocating?: The plural of suffocating is suffocatings.

Adapted from Wiktionary: suffocating (page history and authors); suffocate (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-AnotherFriendlyHuman-suffocating.wav.

Cite this entry: “suffocating.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/suffocating. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.