After the Flood

[Truerenigma]

Suffocant is an adjective, even in French Tom. Asphyxiant is a noun, but refers to gases (CO2, CO, N2, etc.) that starve oxygen from animal species. In your poem you are referring to 'water starvation,' if I am reading it correctly. Soil too dry to germinate seeds is desiccated. Agents that dry water from something are desiccants (noun) and could substitute:

He kicks beneath the paling crust
to where the sun has failed the earth
and flocculation turned the juice
into a desiccant for seed,
that quenched the animating fuse.

It might work for you./Chris

No. Water excess. A flood. Drowns the seed by excluding oxygen. Seed then rots.
Suffocation.
Hmmm.
Best,
Tom

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I'm perhaps not the best person to ask such questions, but yes (I think we do use it as a noun) because we might say something like "The suffocant" (meaning the nitrogen) has not held"....
but then again i think we might also use it as a verb because we say "Put a blanket of nitrogen over the cider" meaning we want the action of a suffocant.
I am of the persuasion that it is correct to say that this is a noun. I found this website with the use of suffocant to name specific products that have this action (as opposed to asphixiation) in...wait for it headlice. Lovely!
http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/idepc...tment.html
It lists a suffocant as a number of specific liquid based products and then goes on to list how such should be applied. As follows:-
The alternative treatments listed below are referred to as suffocants. When applied, the treatment may suffocate and/or create a habitat unfavorable to the head lice.

petroleum jelly (Vaseline®)
mayonnaise
oil (e.g., vegetable, olive, or mineral)

General Instructions for Suffocant Treatment*

Still not sure i have clarified or been of much help. I can see what your problem is here in calling this one.
All the best AJ.

YES! Thanks cider. As I HOPED/thought.
It stays.
Best,
tectak.

Is that your final answer?