strangle

From Middle English stranglen, from Old French estrangler, from Latin strangulō, strangulāre, from Ancient Greek στραγγαλόομαι (strangalóomai, “to strangle”), from στραγγάλη (strangálē, “a halter”); compare στραγγός (strangós, “twisted”) and string. Displaced Middle English wirien, awurien (“to strangle”) (> English worry).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈstɹæŋɡ(ə)l/

• Audio (Southern England)

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈstɹæŋɡəl/
• Rhymes: -æŋɡəl
• Hyphenation: stran‧gle

strangle (third-person singular simple present strangles, present participle strangling, simple past and past participle strangled)

A drawing showing a woman being strangled.

1. (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.

2. (transitive) To stifle or suppress.

   He strangled a scream.

3. (intransitive) To be killed by strangulation, or become strangled.

   The cat slipped from the branch and strangled on its bell-collar.

4. (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; […]

     An adjective use.

• strangulate
• strangulation

strangle (plural strangles)

1. (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.

• asphyxiate
• choke
• gag
• querk
• suffocate
• throttle

• “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.

• Largents, Stangler, langrets, tanglers, trangles

strangle

1. Alternative form of stranglen