Verb roots: -дыхать/дохнуть

Question

1. вдыхать / вдохнуть: inhale, breathe in (one direction, inwards).

2. вздыхать / вздохнуть: one entire breath (in and out), to sigh, pine for smb (metaphorical use).

3. выдыхать / выдохнуть: exhale, breathe out (one direction, outwards).

4. сдыхать / сдохнуть: a really vulgar way of saying "to die", used only for animals.
   My prof said it's not even used for dogs anymore since they began to be considered "man's best friend". Or if a guy was a big villain during his lifetime, you can say "слава Богу, он сдох." My friends would use it when their cell phones broke, i.e., "айфон сдох".
   Question:
   Can I say it when my phone has simply run out of battery or does it mean broken, unusable?
   Sometimes when my friend is visibly exhausted, I will say to him "не сдыхай" (hope it's not offensive). Can also use to say, "die of laughter"?

5. издыхать / издохнуть: means the exact same as сдыхать/сдохнуть? minus the "die of laughter" variation.

6. отдыхать / отдохнуть: well we know this one.

7. I tried some other приставки in Yandex and found:
   продохнуть: to have breathing space.

Can anyone think of other verbs with this root? Or maybe with -дышать?

Answer 1

“Айфо́н сдох”. Question: Can I say it when my phone has simply run out of battery?

Yes you can, but it would create an ambiguity – did it сдох permanently or temporarily? But in general, it can be used in both meanings.

Sometimes when my friend is visibly exhausted, I will say to him “не сдыха́й”

Probably. If would be more appropriate if said, e. g., at the final part of a long race – “не сдыхай, осталось всего полкилометра!” – “don’t give up, only 500 m left to go!”. Without such context, IMO it’d sound a bit weird.

Can also use to say, “die of laughter”?

It’d sound pretty rude if applied to another person. So if it is somebody everybody hated and wished he was dead, then maybe, otherwise better not. Generally, сдох has a derisive meaning and usually is applied to wild animals, etc, so applying it to a person usually means the speaker hates that person. However, when you apply it to yourself – saying “я чуть не сдох от смеха” (I almost died of laughter) – it is fine, a bit rough but completely acceptable in friendly chat.

Answer 2

As someone who reads a lot of blogs about iDevices in Russian I'll add my 2 kopeks...

can i say it [айфон сдох] when my phone has simply run out of battery??

No, the proper way to say that the battery died is батарея села - those who say батарея умерла are typically Americans of Russian descent who are using a calque.

One can say айфон сдох, like айфон сдох и выключился but that implies that someone bricked your iPhone (by screwing up the firmware/baseband update for example).

Most of my friends say айфон сломался (the iPhone broke [itself]) when the damage is physical, e.g., the screen is cracked.

When the iPhone doesn't work for some other reason -- e.g., software rather than hardware, one can simply say айфон не работает )))

Answer 3

• передыхать / передохнуть which is similar to отдыхать / отдохнуть but implies a short period of rest.

• роздых (noun) - close to передыхать / передохнуть but even less formal.

Answer 4

Some forms of the verb сдыхать do not feel right with me.

The perfective form дохнуть is fine, быть на грани издыхания too, but я сдыхаю or он сдыхает (imperfect form) just does not feel right. You can say "я сдыхаю от скуки", but not just Я сдыхаю.. You're not dying (there are other words for that), are you hungry? Tired? Moody? Not enough context. Ты сдыхаешь is even worse - how would you know that?

You can still say сдох, сдохни, дохлый (perfect form).

Also: сдохнуть, подохнуть, издохнуть are virtually the same. They have a bit different colouring, but this should not bother you unless you write books in Russian, which you should not just yet.

Also:

сдóхнуть, подóхнуть, издóхнуть

but

продохнýть, отдохнýть, вздохнýть

You should never mess up the stress. If you ever say отдóхнуть, you seriously risk killing the person you're having the conversation with, by laughter agony.

Answer 5

"Айфон сдох" for me definitely points it is broke, probably not from a physical cause but from some internal failure, the process possibly was prolonged (i.e. it was working unstably for a period before finally becoming disfunctional), but the later is not necessary.

I would never understand it as "discharged".