exhalation

Flow of the respiratory current out of an organism

Entityphysiological processQ2197000

Also known as breathing out · expiration phase · exhalation phase · expiratory phase

Instance of: physiological process
Subclass of: expulsion
Part of: ventilation
, breathing
, breathing movement

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Exhalation is the flow of the breath out of an organism. In animals, it is the movement of air from the lungs out of the airways, to the external environment during breathing. This happens due to elastic properties of the lungs, as well as the internal intercostal muscles which lower the rib cage and decrease thoracic volume. As the thoracic diaphragm relaxes during exhalation it causes the tissue it has depressed to rise superiorly and put pressure on the lungs to expel the air. During forced exhalation, as when blowing out a candle, expiratory muscles including the abdominal muscles and internal intercostal muscles generate abdominal and thoracic pressure, which forces air out of the lungs.

Overview

All data

23 statements · 22% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Opposite of: inhalation
Product or material produced: breath
Follows: inhalation
Followed by: inhalation

On other databases

15 identifiers linking exhalation across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

22%

externally sourced

Source last edited July 24, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). exhalation (Q2197000). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/exhalation-Q2197000