irrespirable
English
WOTD – 24 September 2023
Etymology
- 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”)).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: îrĭspīr'əbəl, îrĕ'spĭrəbəl, IPA(key): /ɪɹɪˈspaɪɹəb(ə)l/, /ɪˈɹɛspɪɹəb(ə)l/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - Hyphenation: ir‧re‧spir‧a‧ble
Adjective
irrespirable (not comparable)
- Not respirable; not suitable for breathing; unbreathable.
- Synonyms: nonrespirable, unrespirable
- Antonyms: breathable, respirable
- 1932 May, Clark Ashton Smith, “The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis”, in Farnsworth Wright, editor, Weird Tales: A Magazine of the Bizarre and Unusual, volume XIX, number 5, Indianapolis, Ind.: Popular Fiction Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 604, column 1:
- 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.
Related terms
Translations
not respirable; not suitable for breathing — see unbreathable
References
- ^ “irrespirable, adj.”, in OED Online , Oxford: Oxford University Press, July 2023.
- ^ “irrespirable, adj.”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Stuart Berg Flexner, editor in chief, Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1993, →ISBN.
French
Etymology
Learned borrowing from Late Latin irrespīrābilis. By surface analysis, ir- + respirable.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /i.ʁɛs.pi.ʁabl/
Adjective
irrespirable (plural irrespirables)
Further reading
- “irrespirable”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012
Spanish
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /irespiˈɾable/ [i.res.piˈɾa.β̞le]
- Rhymes: -able
- Syllabification: i‧rres‧pi‧ra‧ble
Adjective
irrespirable m or f (masculine and feminine plural irrespirables)
Further reading
- “irrespirable”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025