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Adequate vs Suffocate - What's the difference?

adequate | suffocate |

As adjectives the difference between adequate and suffocate

is that adequate is while suffocate is (obsolete) suffocated; choked.

As a verb suffocate is

(ergative) to suffer, or cause someone to suffer, from severely reduced oxygen intake to the body.

adequate

English

Alternative forms

* (archaic)

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Equal to some requirement; proportionate, or correspondent; fully sufficient; as, powers adequate to a great work; an adequate definition lawfully and physically sufficient.
  • * De Quincey
  • Ireland had no adequate champion.
  • * Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Empty House
  • All day, as I drove upon my round, I turned over the case in my mind and found no explanation which appeared to me to be adequate .

    Antonyms

    * inadequate

    Verb

    (adequat)
  • (obsolete) To equalize; to make adequate.
  • (Fotherby)
  • (obsolete) To equal.
  • It [is] an impossibility for any creature to adequate God in his eternity. — Shelford.

    suffocate

    English

    Verb

    (suffocat)
  • (ergative) To suffer, or cause someone to suffer, from severely reduced oxygen intake to the body.
  • Open the hatch, he is suffocating in the airlock!
  • (ergative) To die due to, or kill someone by means of, insufficient oxygen supply to the body.
  • He suffocated his wife by holding a pillow over her head.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Let not hemp his windpipe suffocate .
  • (ergative, figuratively) To overwhelm, or be overwhelmed (by a person or issue), as though with oxygen deprivation.
  • I'm suffocating under this huge workload.
  • To destroy; to extinguish.
  • to suffocate fire

    Synonyms

    * (To suffer from reduced oxygen) asphyxiate * (To die from insufficient oxygen) stifle * (To be overwhelmed) drown * (To reduce oxygen supply) asphyxiate, smother * (To kill by deprivation of oxygen) asphyxiate, stifle * (To make weary with contact) smother

    Derived terms

    * suffocation

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • (obsolete) Suffocated; choked.
  • (Shakespeare)