breathe
To draw air into (inhale), and expel air from (exhale), the lungs in order to extract oxygen and excrete waste gases.
Other meanings
To take in needed gases and expel waste gases in a similar way.
“Fish have gills so they can breathe underwater.”
To inhale (a gas) to sustain life.
“While life as we know it depends on oxygen, scientists have speculated that alien life forms might breathe chlorine or methane.”
Synonyms
- take a breath
- respire
Related words
- overbreathed
- unbreathed
- breathable
- breather
- embreathe
- imbreathe
- misbreathe
- rebreathe
- underbreathe
- upbreathe
- airbreathing
- breathingly
Example sentences
Word history
From Middle English "breth" (breath).
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “breathe” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above; related-word lists use Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0, based on Princeton WordNet), published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.