exhalation

UK/ˌɛkshəˈleɪ̯ʃən/US/ˌɛkshəˈleɪ̯ʃən/

nounC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — exhale sits at #6,527leans writtenformal · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: exhalations

An exhalation is a breath going out. The white cloud in front of your face on a cold morning is an exhalation you can see.

It is the formal partner of inhalation, and you meet the pair in medicine, in yoga classes and in writing that wants to slow a moment down. A doctor measures the force of your exhalation; a teacher tells you to stretch the exhalation until it is twice as long as the breath in. Writers use it loosely for any long breath released — an exhalation of relief once the door finally shuts. In ordinary speech nobody says it: you breathe out, or you sigh.

Definitions of exhalation

1nounexhalationA breath sent out of the lungs.C1
“He let out a long exhalation and sat down.”

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*h₂enh₁-
Latin
exhālātiō
English, today
exhalation

Built from

exhālō · Latin — to breathe out, to exhale
hālō · Latin — to breathe

From Latin exhālātiō, from exhālō (“to breathe out, to exhale”), from hālō (“to breathe”). Equivalent to exhale + -ation.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 35 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

exhalation in the wild

As the thoracic diaphragm relaxes during exhalation it causes the tissue it has depressed to rise superiorly and put pressure on the lungs to expel the air.
Exhalation
The muscles of respiration are the muscles that contribute to inhalation and exhalation, by aiding in the expansion and contraction of the thoracic cavity.
Muscles of respiration
Bhastrika involves a rapid and forceful process of inhalation and exhalation powered by the movement of the diaphragm.
Bhastrika
Then deepest possible exhalation is done very slowly.
Bhastrika

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the hālō family

exhale

exhalation — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others

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