strangle
English
Etymology
From Middle English stranglen, from Old French estrangler, from Latin strangulō, strangulāre, from Ancient Greek στραγγαλόομαι (strangalóomai, “to be strangled”), from στραγγάλη (strangálē, “a halter”); compare στραγγός (strangós, “twisted”) and string. Displaced Middle English wirien, awurien (“to strangle”) (> English worry).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈstɹæŋɡ(ə)l/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈstɹæŋɡəl/
- Rhymes: -æŋɡəl
- Hyphenation: stran‧gle
Verb
strangle (third-person singular simple present strangles, present participle strangling, simple past and past participle strangled)
- (transitive) To kill someone by squeezing the throat so as to cut off the oxygen supply; to choke, suffocate or throttle.
- She strangled her husband and dissolved the body in acid.
- 1936, Robert Frost, “The Vindictives”, in A Further Range:
- And his subjects wrung all they could wring / Out of temple and palace and store. / But when there seemed no more to bring, / His captors convicted the king / Of once having started a war, / And strangled the wretch with a string.
- (transitive) To stifle or suppress.
- He strangled a scream.
- (intransitive) To be killed by strangulation, or become strangled.
- The cat slipped from the branch and strangled on its bell-collar.
- (intransitive) To be stifled, choked, or suffocated in any manner.
- c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:
- Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, / […] And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?
- 1626, Ovid, “The Eighth Booke”, in George Sandys, transl., Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished […], London: […] William Stansby, →OCLC, page 165:
- Her, vvhom his furie hath from earth exil'd, / And in the ſtrangling vvaters drencht his child; […]
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
to kill someone by strangulation
|
to stifle or suppress
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Noun
strangle (plural strangles)
- (finance) A trading strategy using options, constructed through taking equal positions in a put and a call with different strike prices, such that there is a payoff if the underlying asset's value moves beyond the range of the two strike prices.
See also
Further reading
- “strangle”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
- “strangle”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
- “strangle”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
Anagrams
Middle English
Verb
strangle
- Alternative form of stranglen
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