To kill or cause someone to lose consciousness by preventing oxygen from reaching the lungs; to suffocate.
From 'asphyxia' plus the verb-forming suffix '-ate,' creating a transitive verb meaning to cause the condition of asphyxia.
Before about 1800, 'asphyxiate' didn't even exist—people just said 'suffocate' or 'choke.' But with the Scientific Revolution and growing understanding of oxygen, scientists needed a more technical term.
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