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Glite Dictionary
🌬️ To take air in ☕ To take a break ❤️ To be alive ✨ To give feeling 👃 To give off odor 🤫 To say quietly 🧵 To let air pass 🍷 To air wine
to breathe

to breathe

71 7.4
To be alive
  • verb
  • /briːð/
  • Literature
: vivir
  • Well... as I live and breathe.
  • living, breathing
  • breathing things
  • a breathing human

We're just being and breathing and existing.

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Examples

  • I move and breathe and have my being.

  • We're just being and breathing and existing.

    Variety

  • I live in them, I breathe in them.

    A Good Year (2006)

  • Listen, guys, the second you breathe your first breath, you won.

  • As I live and breathe.

    Late Checkout (2023)

  • In the midst of a year like none other, may we pause to breathe and simply be.

  • As long as you're still breathing, it's never too late to start.

  • Nurtured the hope that there was hope... that one day I'd breathe free air.

    The Rock (1996)

  • Father Sun sent us tumbling to Earth and breathed life into us.

    Fiction book (1990)

  • In the quiet of the forest, I felt truly alive, able to breathe freely and appreciate nature.

Synonyms

to live
vsto breathe
∞ 1.0

To continue to be alive

is a literary way to mean mere existence rather than everyday survival
breathing
vsto breathe
82 1.0

Showing signs of life by moving air in and out of the lungs

focuses on existing or being alive rather than the biological airflow process
to respire
vsto breathe
1 6.0

To breathe in and out to take in oxygen and let out carbon dioxide

speaks of existing or simply being alive in a poetic or literary sense

Antonyms

to die
∞ 1.0

To stop living and no longer be alive

to perish
  • Formal
120 6.0

To die suddenly or violently, often in large numbers

Idioms

to live and breathe
  • Informal
17 4.8

To be very excited about something and always make it a main part of life

to breathe a sigh of relief
  • Informal
16 2.5

To feel very relieved after a time of worry

to breathe a word
  • Informal
13 6.3

To tell someone a secret that should be kept

to breathe one's last
  • Literature
1 7.9

To stop living

Phrasal Verbs

to breathe in
96 1.0

To take air into your lungs through your nose or mouth

to breathe out
36 1.0

To push air out of your lungs

to breathe down someone's neck
  • Informal
30 7.5

To watch or pressure someone closely so they feel nervous

to breathe easy
  • Informal
18 3.4

To feel relaxed and relieved after a worrying time

How Alive

to thrive
233 3.2
to flourish
113 4.1
to breathe
  • Literature
71 7.4
struggle
417 3.2
to die
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

breathe infinitive
breathed past
breathed past participle
breathing present participle
breathes third person singular

Morphology

breathe = breath (semi-transparent) = breath + e

The literary sense 'to be alive' is a metaphorical extension from having breath; related to the base but somewhat archaic/literary.

Etymology

Breathe got the meaning 'be alive' because living things need breath to survive. So when people say someone will fight 'as long as I breathe', they mean 'as long as I am alive'.