Irrespirable

//ɪɹɪˈspaɪɹəb(ə)l// adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Not respirable; not suitable for breathing; unbreathable. not-comparable

    "The air was growing fouler and more irrespirable, with a thick, sodden quality, as if from a sediment of material rottenness; and we had about decided to turn back."

Synonyms

All synonyms
nonrespirableunbreathableunrespirable

Example

More examples

"The air was growing fouler and more irrespirable, with a thick, sodden quality, as if from a sediment of material rottenness; and we had about decided to turn back."

Etymology

Either: * from ir- (prefix meaning ‘not’) + respirable; or * borrowed from French irrespirable, from Late Latin irrespīrābilis, from Latin ir- (a variant of in- (prefix meaning ‘not’)) + respīrāre + -ābilis (suffix meaning ‘able to be’). Respīrāre is the present active infinitive of respīrō (“to blow or breathe back; to breathe, respire; to breathe out, exhale”), from re- (prefix meaning ‘again; back, backwards’) + spīrō (“to blow; to breathe, respire; to breathe out, exhale”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peys- (“to blow; to breathe”)).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.