boccheggiare
Appearance
Italian
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From bocca (“mouth”) + -eggiare.
Verb
[edit]boccheggiàre (first-person singular present bocchéggio, first-person singular past historic boccheggiài, past participle boccheggiàto, auxiliary avére) (intransitive)
- to fight for breath; to gasp; to pant [auxiliary avere]
- Synonym: ansimare
- 2019, George Orwell, translated by Nicola Gardini, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mondadori:
- Adesso si dimenava sul pavimento, boccheggiando.
- She was thrashing about on the floor, fighting for breath.
- (literally, “She was squirming on the floor, panting.”)
- to be dying; to draw in one's last breaths
- Synonyms: essere in fin di vita, agonizzare, rantolare
- (figurative, by extension) to find oneself in grave difficulty; to struggle
Conjugation
[edit] Conjugation of boccheggiàre (-are) (See Appendix:Italian verbs)
Derived terms
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- boccheggiare in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana