Suffocating

ppl. a. [-ING².]

  1.  That causes suffocation; stifling.

1604.  Shaks., Oth., III. ii. 389. If there be Cords, or Kniues, Poyson, or Fire, or suffocating streames, Ile not indure it.

1667.  Phil. Trans., II. 416. The hot winds blowing … with such a suffocating heat.

1764.  Harmer, Observ., i. § 16. 39. These hot winds are not deadly at Aleppo…. They are very incommoding and suffocating in Barbary and Egypt too.

1807.  T. Thomson, Chem. (ed. 3), II. 172. The dense and suffocating odour of muriatic acid.

1817.  Shelley, Rev. Islam, I. xiii. 3. Would the Snake Relax his suffocating grasp.

1829.  Lytton, Disowned, lxxxiv. Throwing, as it were, in that exclamation, a whole weight of suffocating emotion from his chest.

1860.  Tyndall, Glac., I. xviii. 133. The dead suffocating warmth of the interior of an oven.

1879.  Froude, Cæsar, xxii. 391. The hills were waterless, the weather suffocating.

  fig.  1875.  Helps, Soc. Press., viii. 101. I hope he told you of the suffocating interest I take in your present subject.

  † b.  Suffocating damp, = CHOKE-DAMP. So suffocating shaft. Obs.

1695.  Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, IV. (1723), 227. One is called the Suffocating, the other the Fulminating Damp.

1778.  Pryce, Min. Cornub., 201. If faggots on fire … be thrown into a suffocating Shaft, it will rarify the bad air.

  2.  Accompanied by suffocation.

1748.  Anson’s Voy., II. v. 184. That uneasy and suffocating sensation.

1818–20.  E. Thompson, Nosologia (ed. 3), 222. Convulsive suffocating cough.

1838.  Thackeray, Yellowpl. Corr., iv. (1887), 26. She gev a suffycating shreek.

1900.  Westm. Gaz., 10 Sept., 6/2. A hoarse, suffocating sound.

  3.  That undergoes suffocation. rare.

1869.  Daily News, 2 July. The mute agonies of the suffocating lobster before he is boiled alive in a pot.

  4.  as adv. = SUFFOCATINGLY. rare.

1737.  Whiston, Josephus, Hist., III. ix. § 1. It was suffocating hot.

  Hence Suffocatingly adv., so as to cause suffocation.

1822.  Blackw. Mag., XII. 434. I never felt more suffocatingly hot.

1854.  Dickens, Hard T., II. iv. The … suffocatingly close Hall.

1885.  ‘Mrs. Alexander,’ Valerie’s Fate, vi. Her heart suddenly waking from its torpor to beat wildly, suffocatingly.