Plain English Meaning

Breathing too much carbon dioxide builds it up in your body and starts to poison you. It makes you feel sick, foggy, and short of breath, and if it keeps going you can pass out.

Full Definition

A toxic condition caused by breathing air with an elevated concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), producing symptoms such as headache, dizziness, rapid breathing, drowsiness, confusion, and eventually unconsciousness. In aviation it most commonly arises in confined cabin spaces where CO2 accumulates from cargo such as sublimating dry ice or from inadequate ventilation.

Context Anchor

Seen in discussions about carrying dry ice in an aircraft, especially in small cabins or poorly vented baggage areas.

Derivation

‘Intoxication’ comes from the Latin ‘toxicum’ meaning poison. So ‘carbon dioxide intoxication’ literally means being poisoned by carbon dioxide — useful because pilots often associate ‘intoxication’ only with , when medically it just means being affected by any toxic substance.