Meanings
- not comparableNot respirable; not suitable for breathing; unbreathable.
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.
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 1Synonyms: nonrespirable, unrespirable · Antonyms: breathable, respirable
Synonyms & antonyms
adjectiveNot respirable; not suitable for breathing; unbreathable.
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*(s)peys-“to blow; to breathe”
- Latinir-
- Late Latinirrespīrābilis
- Frenchirrespirable
- Englishirrespirable
Either: * 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”)).
More words from French, Late Latin, Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
irrespirable. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/irrespirable
“irrespirable.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/irrespirable. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “irrespirable,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/irrespirable.
Source: irrespirable on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.