étouffer

To suffocate or smother (literally, or under a pile of work: étouffer sous les dossiers), to muffle a sound, and to suppress or hush up a scandal or a piece of news (étouffer une affaire).

• La fumée l'a fait étouffer. — The smoke made him choke.
• Ils ont essayé d'étouffer le scandale. — They tried to hush up the scandal.
• Un coussin a étouffé le bruit de la chute. — A cushion muffled the sound of the fall.

Étouffer and étrangler both translate loosely as "to choke," but they're not interchangeable — étrangler implies squeezing the throat (strangling), while étouffer implies cutting off air more generally (smoke, a pillow, an enclosed space, or figuratively suppressing something).

Often confused with étrangler.

• expression Étouffer dans l'œuf — A common fixed expression, literally "to smother in the egg," meaning to nip something in the bud — stop a plan, idea, or problem before it can develop.