as in strangled
to keep (someone) from breathing by exerting pressure on the windpipe
I was so angry at what he was saying that I could have throttled him!
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Recent Examples of throttled
The Hoosiers — who, like Tech, lose their first-ever playoff game last season and might’ve been expected to fizzle — beat Ohio State in the Big 10 championship game to clinch the bracket’s top seed and throttled Alabama in the Rose Bowl to make the playoff committee look smart for the decision.
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Shawn McFarland, Dallas Morning News, 2 Jan. 2026
Putin's regime has banned Facebook and Instagram and severely throttled other platforms such as X, formerly Twitter.
—Alexander Smith, NBC news, 24 Dec. 2025
Bill Belichick's Patriots, led by quarterback Mac Jones, were throttled 47-17 by the Bills in the Wild Card round that year.
—CBS News, 22 Dec. 2025
Alabama, on the other hand, was throttled by Florida State in the first game of the season and then lost to the Oklahoma Sooners by two.
—Ryan Gaydos, FOXNews.com, 8 Dec. 2025
However, Alabama and BYU were each throttled in its conference championship games on Saturday — the Crimson Tide falling 28-7 to Georgia, BYU losing 34-7 to Texas Tech.
—Jordan McPherson, Miami Herald, 7 Dec. 2025
The club did play in the Concacaf Champions Cup final earlier this season – routing Inter Miami 5-1 on aggregate in the semifinals to get there – but then got throttled in the title match by Cruz Azul.
—Avi Creditor, New York Times, 30 Nov. 2025
Aledo throttled Fort Worth Arlington Heights 55-0 on Friday to reach the regional final.
—Mike Waters, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 29 Nov. 2025
With its supply line throttled, the plasmasphere struggled to rebuild, highlighting how tightly linked Earth's atmospheric layers become during extreme space-weather events.
—Samantha Mathewson, Space.com, 25 Nov. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for throttled
Verb
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Clancy allegedly strangled her three children and then tried to kill herself by jumping out a window in 2023, leaving her paralyzed from the sternum down.—
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Stefon Diggs allegedly strangled his female chef over money earlier this month.—
Verb
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In 2022, four women choked to death on the rice cakes and 12 other people were hospitalized.—
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The woman, in her 80s, choked on daifuku — mochi filled with sweet bean paste — at her home in Minato Ward just after midnight on New Year’s Day and was later pronounced dead at a hospital.—
Cite this Entry
“Throttled.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/throttled. Accessed 12 Jan. 2026.
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