Definition of "asphyxiate" []

• To cause asphyxia in; smother. (verb-transitive)
• To undergo asphyxia; suffocate. (verb-intransitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Moreover, when the human body does start to asphyxiate on a liquid, it has a … peculiar reflex, designed to prevent aspiration of liquid: the larynx clamps down, preventing anything - air, water, whatever, from entering the lungs."
• "Climbing up revealed that the alarm meant the backup 9V battery was low, not that I was about to asphyxiate – that would have rated four beeps in quick succession."
• "Donovan and his investigators began piecing together the many parts of the Nazi Holocaust machine, unearthing SS documents on “death vans” used to asphyxiate Jews, collecting testimony from Auschwitz survivors on its gas chambers."