2. Relief from toil or suffering: rest. [Obs.]
Till the day Appear of respiration to the just And
vengeance to the wicked. --Milton.
3. Interval; intermission. [Obs.] --Bp. Hall.
4. (Physiol.) The act of resping or breathing; the act of
taking in and giving out air; the aggregate of those
processes bu which oxygen is introduced into the system,
and carbon dioxide, or carbonic acid, removed.
Note: Respiration in the higher animals is divided into:
({a}) Internal respiration, or the interchange of
oxygen and carbonic acid between the cells of the body
and the bathing them, which in one sense is a process
of nutrition. ({b}) External respiration, or the
gaseous interchange taking place in the special
respiratory organs, the lungs. This constitutes
respiration proper. --Gamgee. In the respiration of
plants oxygen is likewise absorbed and carbonic acid
exhaled, but in the light this process is obscured by
another process which goes on with more vigor, in which
the plant inhales and absorbs carbonic acid and exhales
free oxygen.