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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
wheeze
I.verb
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ His asthma was acting up and he wheezed throughout the show.
▪ People with asthma may start to wheeze.
▪ When she coughed she made a terrible wheezing sound.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ After a 13-month stint, the wheezing and frail Chernenko died in March 1985 at age 73.
▪ After all, just fifteen years ago, most analysts thought Disney was a tired, wheezing firm.
▪ He was stocky and wheezed a little.
▪ I wheezed at them, and they nodded.
▪ The ragged figure shook with fury, his breath wheezing in and out of his tiny frame.
▪ The scarves sag, the whistles wheeze, one last outsize banana droops.
▪ There was fluid in my lungs, rattling and wheezing at every breath.
▪ Thought of fat Goldberg shuffling round the glass in the little room, rubbing his unshaven cheeks, wheezing.
II.noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ He reminded Harry, in his build, expression and asthmatic wheeze, of a bulldog peering ill-humouredly from his kennel.
▪ Juvenile has a shrill persistent wheeze.
▪ The wheeze was simple: to change their shape from square to round.
▪ We hope that woodworkers of all types will send in their wheezes, as readers are always asking for more tips.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wheeze

Wheeze \Wheeze\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Wheezed; p. pr. & vb. n. Wheezing.] [OE. whesen, AS. hw[=e]san (cf. Icel. hv[ae]sa to hiss, Sw. hv["a]sa, Dan. hv[ae]se); akin to AS. hw[=o]sta a cough, D. hoest, G. husten, OHG. huosto, Icel. h[=o]sti, Lith. kosti to cough, Skr. k[=a]s. [root]43. Cf. Husky hoarse.] To breathe hard, and with an audible piping or whistling sound, as persons affected with asthm

  1. ``Wheezing lungs.''
    --Shak.

Wheeze

Wheeze \Wheeze\, n.

  1. A piping or whistling sound caused by difficult respiration.

  2. (Phon.) An ordinary whisper exaggerated so as to produce the hoarse sound known as the ``stage whisper.'' It is a forcible whisper with some admixture of tone.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
wheeze

mid-15c., probably from a Scandinavian source such as Old Norse hvoesa "to hiss," Danish hvæse cognate with Old English hwæst "act of blowing," hwosan "to cough," from an imitative root. Related: Wheezed; wheezing. The noun is first recorded 1834.

Wiktionary
wheeze

n. 1 A piping or whistling sound caused by difficult respiration. 2 An ordinary whisper exaggerated so as to produce the hoarse sound known as the "stage whisper"; a forcible whisper with some admixture of tone. 3 (context British slang English) An ulterior scheme or plan 4 (context slang English) Something very humorous or laughable. vb. To breathe hard, and with an audible piping or whistling sound, as persons affected with asthm

WordNet
wheeze
  1. n. breathing with a husky or whistling sound

  2. (Briticism) a clever or amusing scheme or trick; "a clever wheeze probably succeeded in neutralizing the German espionage threat"

  3. v. breathe with difficulty

Wikipedia
Wheeze

A wheeze (formally called "sibilant rhonchi" in medical terminology) is a continuous, coarse, whistling sound produced in the respiratory airways during breathing. For wheezes to occur, some part of the respiratory tree must be narrowed or obstructed, or airflow velocity within the respiratory tree must be heightened. Wheezing is commonly experienced by persons with a lung disease; the most common cause of recurrent wheezing is asthma attacks, though it can also be a symptom of lung cancer.

The differential diagnosis of wheezing is wide, and the reason for wheezing in a given patient is determined by considering the characteristics of the wheezes and the historical and clinical findings made by the examining physician.

Usage examples of "wheeze".

Mute and appalled, he moved aside for her, and she wheezed and entered the shadow.

Harry Baldachin wheezed and peered out from under his thickening orbital ridges.

In alcoves beflowered girls offered synthetic love to wheezing old men, and elsewhere others lay stupefied by dream-powders.

Their wheezing breath was loud in the shuttered quiet of the street, but he could hear the snarling brabble of voices not far off and the thudding sound of feet.

And they turned with sly, buckish grins to glance at Whitney, whose face now matched the wheezing red coals in the hearth beside her.

The wheezing was still present, but the height of his house in Petra camp had meant some relief from the chaffy dust.

As he wheezed with laughter at his own joke, the young girl with him wished he would just crash and burn so she could go home and have a cuppa and a ham sandwich like normal people.

Strung out on his flanks and to his rear was what was left of his commandall the horses as done-in as his own, the men gasping and wheezing, many of them bleeding as well, their swords dull and edgeless, their pistols and powder flasks empty.

With the first look of apprehension and the first wheeze, she pounced with the ephedrine or the isoprenaline, summoned one of the professors, and had the sufferer nicely propped up in a chair by the time someone arrived, ready to be talked out of further wheezes, and if that were not possible, ready for whatever treatment was ordered.

They were trapped here, flat on the floor, inhaling plaster dust with a gasp, exhaling it with a wheeze, without options, without hope.

The wheezing, eerily sibilant emissions of the flimmers did much to inspire his efforts.

Hal Samdu, cool, composed Jay Kalam, wheezing, groaning Giles Habibula.

He was shaking, his breathing a tortured, hyperextended wheeze, spittle flying from his mouth, lips stretched in an insane grimace with the strain of the effort.

Before they reached the gorge at the end of the valley, Juba was wheezing and staggering, all her rolls of shining fat wobbling at each heavy pace, and she was seeing patches of darkness before her eyes.

Actually, old Loopy might have been on to something with this BacoFoil wheeze of his, because the ringing in his head seemed to diminish instantly.