strangle

present singular third person strangles · participle present strangling · participle past strangled · past strangled

1. transitiveTo kill someone by squeezing the throat so as to cut off the oxygen supply.

   She strangled her husband and dissolved the body in acid.

   1 more example

   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.

   1936, Robert Frost, “The Vindictives”, in A Further Range

   Synonyms: scrag

2. transitiveTo choke, suffocate or throttle, whether the victim survives or not.
3. transitiveTo stifle or suppress.

   He strangled a scream.

4. intransitiveTo be killed by strangulation, or become strangled.

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

5. intransitiveTo be stifled, choked, or suffocated in any manner.

   Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, / […] And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?

   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]

   1 more example

   Her, vvhom his furie hath from earth exil'd, / And in the ſtrangling vvaters drencht his child; […]

   1626, Ovid, “The Eighth Booke”, in George Sandys, transl., Ovid’s Metamorphosis Englished […], London: […] William Stansby, →OCLC, page 165

plural strangles

1. businessA 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.