Definition of "irrespirable" []

• Not fit for breathing; not respirable. (adjective)

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.

• "[55] The burning of sulphur produces sulphurous acid, which is an irrespirable gas."
• "But this refers only to crude acetylene undiluted with air; and being a hydrocarbon -- being in fact neither oxygen nor common air -- acetylene is irrespirable of itself though largely devoid of specific toxic action."
• "After Baudrimont, insects are, in presence of alcohols, chloroform, and irrespirable gases, similarly affected as man."