hyperventilate

From hyper- + ventilate.

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hyperventilate (third-person singular simple present hyperventilates, present participle hyperventilating, simple past and past participle hyperventilated)

1. (intransitive) To breathe quickly and deeply, especially at an abnormally rapid rate.
   • 1981 April 15, Ira Berkow, “DRAMA IN 'STENGELESE: YOU CAN LOOK IT UP”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     When I tried it, I hyperventilated.

   • 1988 October 2, James Atlas, “DABBLING IN LOVE - NOT THE NICE KIND”, in The New York Times‎^[2]:

     Sometimes her prose hyperventilates ("Once, years ago, his and N.'s love for each other had glowed like phosphorescent fire on the surfaces of their bodies"), and she has a weakness for epiphanies ("There was a man, no longer young, though not yet old, who, traveling alone in northern Europe, began to feel that his soul was being drained slowly, almost secretly from him, drop by drop").

   • 2020 June 15, Eva Holland, “In a Crisis, We Can Learn From Trauma Therapy”, in The New York Times‎^[3]:

     Sometimes on the highway I had to pull over to hyperventilate and sob.

   • 2024 August 19, Paul Krugman, “Kamalanomics, Revealed: A Solid Center-Left Agenda”, in The New York Times‎^[4]:

     Even some middle-of-the-road economic commentators have been hyperventilating, saying that she’s essentially calling for price controls, which is odd, because she didn’t say anything like that.

• overbreathe

• hyperventilation
• hyperventilative
• hyperventilator