strangulation

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act of strangling or strangulating.
• noun The state of being strangled or strangulated.
• noun Medicine Constriction of a body part so as to cut off the flow of blood or another fluid.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act or state of strangling; a sudden and violent compression of the windpipe, constriction being applied directly to the neck, either around it or in the fore part, or from within the esophagus, so as to prevent the passage of air, and thereby suspend respiration and, if the constriction is prolonged, destroy life.
• noun In pathology, the state of a part too closely constricted, as the intestine in strangulated hernia.
• noun Excessive or abnormal constriction of any kind.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act of strangling, or the state of being strangled.
• noun (Med.) Inordinate compression or constriction of a tube or part, as of the throat; especially, such as causes a suspension of breathing, of the passage of contents, or of the circulation, as in cases of hernia.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun the act of strangling or the state of being strangled
• noun the constriction of the air passage or other body part that cuts off the flow of a fluid

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the act of suffocating (someone) by constricting the windpipe
• noun (pathology) constriction of a body part so as to cut off the flow of blood or other fluid
• noun the condition of having respiration stopped by compression of the air passage