Also 6 -cion. [ad. L. suffōcātio-, -ōnem, n. of action f. suffōcāre to SUFFOCATE. Cf. F. suffocation.] The act of suffocating or condition of being suffocated.
a. 1577. Sir T. Smith, Commw. Eng., II. xxiii. (1589), 95. He … that violently commeth to his death, whether it bee by knife, poison, cord, drowning, burning, suffocation, or otherwise.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., III. v. 119. It was a miracle to scape suffocation.
1620. Venner, Via Recta, viii. 190. They … that … surcharge their bodies with ouer-much meat … incurre suddaine and perilous suffocations.
1737. Whiston, Josephus, Antiq., VI. viii. § 2. Some … demoniacal disorders … brought upon him such suffocations as were ready to choke him.
1819. Scott, Leg. Montrose, xiii. Departing quietly by suffocation, like your ancestors before you.
1846. J. Baxter, Libr. Pract. Agric. (ed. 4), I. p. xxiv. The large ball room … was crammed to suffocation.
1875. A. S. Taylor, Poisons (ed. 3), 107. A lady who had been rendered unconscious by chloroform died from suffocation, as a result of the food finding its way into the air passages.
b. transf. and fig.
1567. Fenton, Trag. Disc., i. (1898), I. 76. To dye afore my tyme by suffocacion of pynnynge dollour.
1651. Wittie, trans. Primrose’s Pop. Err., III. 150. The suffocation of heat.
1744. Phil. Trans., XLIII. 130. Blackness is brought on, by an Extinction or Suffocation of those same mixed Rays.
1824. Loudon, Encycl. Gard. (ed. 2), § 893. Suffocation [in plants]. Sometimes it happens that the pores of the epidermis are closed up, and transpiration consequently obstructed.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. IV. iv. Is it not rather the very murkiness, and atmospheric suffocation, that brings the lightning and the light?
† c. [medical L. suffocatio hysterica or uterina.] In full suffocation of the womb, matrix, mother (see MOTHER sb.1 11 b), bairn’s bed (see BAIRN Comb.): hysteria. Obs.
1549. Compl. Scot., vi. 67. Muguart, that is gude for the suffocatione of ane vomans bayrnis bed [read bed].
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 19. The same is good against the Suffocation of the Matrix (that is the stopping and hardnesse of the Mother).
1603. E. Jorden (title), A Briefe Discovrse of a Disease called the Suffocation of the Mother.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 652. The fat of a sheep … cureth the suffocation of the womb.
1719. Quincy, Lex. Physico-Med. (1722), Suffocation, Choaking. This is used in Hysterick Cases, wherein the Uterus is imagined to be … as it were suffocated with ill Humours.
