dyspnea
Plural: dyspneas
Noun
- Difficult or labored breathing; shortness of breath.
- difficult or labored respiration
- Difficult or laboured breathing.
Examples
- The tension of the Scrabble endgame caused him mild dyspnea, waiting for his opponent’s move.
Origin / Etymology
Variant spelling of dyspnoea, a learned borrowing from Latin dyspnoea (“difficulty breathing”), from Ancient Greek δῠ́σπνοιᾰ (dŭ́spnoiă, “difficulty breathing, shortness of breath”), from δῠ́σπνοος (dŭ́spnoos, “short of breath, breathing with difficulty”, adjective) (also δῠ́σπνους (dŭ́spnous) by contraction) + -ῐᾰ (-ĭă, suffix forming abstract nouns). Δῠ́σπνοος (Dŭ́spnoos) is derived from δῠσ- (dŭs-, prefix meaning ‘bad; difficult, hard; unfortunate’) + πνέω (pnéō, “to blow; to breathe”) (from Proto-Indo-European *pnew- (“to breathe; to pant”)) + -ος (-os, suffix forming adjectives). The English word is analysable as dys- (prefix meaning ‘abnormal; difficult; disease’) + -pnea (suffix meaning ‘breathing, respiration’).
Synonyms
dyspnoea, SOB, breathlessness, shortness of breath
Scrabble Score: 13
dyspnea: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Worddyspnea: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
dyspnea: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary