choke
Americanverb (used with object)
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to stop the breath of by squeezing or obstructing the windpipe; strangle; stifle.
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to stop by or as if by strangling or stifling.
The sudden wind choked his words.
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to stop by filling; obstruct; clog.
Grease choked the drain.
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to suppress (a feeling, emotion, etc.) (often followed by back ordown ).
I managed to choke back my tears.
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to fill chock-full.
The storeroom was choked with furniture.
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to seize (a log, felled tree, etc.) with a chain, cable, or the like, so as to facilitate removal.
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to enrich the fuel mixture of (an internal-combustion engine) by diminishing the air supply to the carburetor.
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Sports. to grip (a bat, racket, or the like) farther than usual from the end of the handle; shorten one's grip on (often followed byup ).
verb (used without object)
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to suffer from or as from strangling or suffocating.
He choked on a piece of food.
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to become obstructed, clogged, or otherwise stopped.
The words choked in her throat.
noun
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the act or sound of choking.
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a mechanism by which the air supply to the carburetor of an internal-combustion engine can be diminished or stopped.
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Machinery. any mechanism that, by blocking a passage, regulates the flow of air, gas, etc.
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Electricity. choke coil.
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a narrowed part, as in a chokebore.
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the bristly upper portion of the receptacle of the artichoke.
verb phrase
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choke up
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to become or cause to become speechless, as from the effect of emotion or stress.
She choked up over the sadness of the tale.
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to become too tense or nervous to perform well.
Our team began to choke up in the last inning.
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choke off to stop or obstruct by or as by choking.
to choke off a nation's fuel supply.
verb
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(tr) to hinder or stop the breathing of (a person or animal), esp by constricting the windpipe or by asphyxiation
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(intr) to have trouble or fail in breathing, swallowing, or speaking
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(tr) to block or clog up (a passage, pipe, street, etc)
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(tr) to retard the growth or action of
the weeds are choking my plants
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(tr) to suppress (emotion)
she choked her anger
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slang (intr) to die
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(tr) to enrich the petrol-air mixture by reducing the air supply to (a carburettor, petrol engine, etc)
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(intr) (esp in sport) to be seized with tension and fail to perform well
noun
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the act or sound of choking
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a device in the carburettor of a petrol engine that enriches the petrol-air mixture by reducing the air supply
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any constriction or mechanism for reducing the flow of a fluid in a pipe, tube, etc
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Also called: choke coil. electronics an inductor having a relatively high impedance, used to prevent the passage of high frequencies or to smooth the output of a rectifier
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the inedible centre of the head of an artichoke
Other Word Forms
- chokeable adjective
- interchoke verb (used with object)
- unchokeable adjective
- unchoked adjective
Etymology
Origin of choke
1150–1200; Middle English choken, cheken, variant of achoken, acheken, Old English ācēocian to suffocate; akin to Old Norse kōk gullet
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
He would also condemn McLaren to one of the biggest chokes in the history of the sport.
At the risk of sounding more pious than I am: When every game, every half, every quarter and even every shot is attached to gambling odds, good old-fashioned storytelling gets choked out.
From Los Angeles Times
The receivership choked off distributions of new IPv4 addresses, leaving the continent’s service providers struggling to expand capacity.
"People are choking on pollution, choking on the concrete -- and all the dust that comes with the construction, traffic, smog, heatwaves," she added.
From Barron's
Still, ammunition supplies were choked for weeks and some of the cargo had to be reloaded back onto ships.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
