Asphyxiation is the name for what happens when someone cannot breathe normally — the process, or the state — and it is often how people die. You meet it in news, hospitals, and court: “the cause of death was asphyxiation.” It does not tell you the method by itself. It might be smoke, drowning of a kind, a blocked airway, or gas; the word only says the breathing failed. Like asphyxiate, it is a serious, official-sounding word, not one friends use over dinner. Suffocation is the everyday cousin. Asphyxiation sits on the report.