A vivid verb meaning to choke, strangle, or suffocate. Medical writers use it for a doctor administering bitter potions that make patients gag. Agricultural texts describe weeds choking grain crops. The passive voice means 'to be choked' or suffocated. In the Gospels it famously appears in the parable of the sower, where thorns choke the growing seed. The simple verb is less common than its compound form ἀποπνίγω, but both convey the same forceful image of breath being cut off.