choke
Americanverb (used with object)
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chokes,
present (3rd person singular)
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choked,
past participle, past
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choking
present participle
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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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chokes,
present (3rd person singular)
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choked,
past participle, past
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choking
present participle
-
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
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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chokesimple
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chokessimple
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have chokedperfect
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has chokedperfect
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am chokingprogressive
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are chokingprogressive
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is chokingprogressive
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have been chokingperfect progressive
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has been chokingperfect progressive
Past
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chokedsimple
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had chokedperfect
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was chokingprogressive
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were chokingprogressive
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had been chokingperfect progressive
Future
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
Explanation
When you choke, you are suddenly unable to breathe, often because something is stuck in your throat. Your dad's rude joke might make you gasp and choke on your grilled cheese sandwich. You might choke in a smoky room, or choke on a grape that's lodged halfway down your throat. In either case, your body can't get enough oxygen. People also choke up with emotion, figuratively choking on their sobs. Likewise, a child might complain, "This scarf chokes me!" — it's uncomfortably tight, but he's not literally unable to breathe. When the weeds in your garden outnumber the vegetables, you can also say they choke, or crowd, your plants.
Vocabulary lists containing choke
Common Five-letter Words for Wordle, List 3
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"When Cultures Meet"
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for January 22–January 28, 2022
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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.
See Examples For:
By 2015, however, crippling anxiety and loss of control left him so overwhelmed that he carried a water bottle everywhere, terrified that he might choke on his own saliva.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2026
Now a new choke point has emerged in part of the industry that policymakers have barely considered: the instruction set architecture, or ISA.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 9, 2026
By forcing ships to turn back from the narrow Bab El Mandeb strait, they have threatened to choke off the main maritime route from Europe to Asia.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
If you miss your monthly payment to Amazon Oxygen, will you choke to death?
From Salon ● Jul. 19, 2026
Water in my mouth, making me choke, but there’s air, too.
From "The Young Man and the Sea" by Rodman Philbrick
That in turn chokes off Saudi oil exports to Asia.
From BBC ● Jul. 29, 2026
It raises the cost of capital, delays investment and chokes off the very capacity needed to relieve bottlenecks.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 6, 2026
The flea-sized psyllid bites the leaves and transmits the disease, which slowly chokes out the tree’s vascular system from the inside, taking years to finally show itself.
From Slate ● Apr. 20, 2026
He would also condemn McLaren to one of the biggest chokes in the history of the sport.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 1, 2025
Apart from the lake where people walk dogs, every season chokes up more and more paths in the woods.
From "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell
Eddie Hearn choked up mid-sentence during the final news conference when it dawned on him this was the last time he would experience a Taylor fight week.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
“In the U.S., people who don’t speak Spanish have invited us to their homes and let us sleep on their couches,” he says, a little choked up with emotion.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
But the good news, or the kind-of good news, or the “why in God’s name did this take so long” news, is that Infantino has finally choked on an overdose of hubris.
From Salon ● Aug. 2, 2026
“I watched him have three seizures. That ICE agent could have choked on his tongue had I not been there.”
From Slate ● Jul. 27, 2026
Barry wiped his eyes and somehow choked out the word “yes.”
From "I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005" by Lauren Tarshis
Underground and out of sight, giant subterranean peat fires continue to smoulder, choking the air with poisonous fumes.
From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2026
Shipments of liquefied natural gas, fertilizers and other commodities also remain stuck in the Gulf, choking the economies of Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq and Bahrain—nations that don’t have alternative sea outlets.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 5, 2026
But between parasitic infections and the wildfire smoke that’s currently choking U.S. cities, maybe you’d prefer to spend much of this weekend inside.
From Slate ● Jul. 17, 2026
As a result of the physical exertion, the former chef claims that she “became dizzy, began choking and gasping for air, and required assistance from security personnel, who intervened by providing water and aid.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2026
He stared awhile at what we had to sell, and made an effort to say something and tried again and at last he said, choking, “The bullocks must go. Otherwise we shall not have enough.”
From "Nectar in a Sieve" by Kamala Markandaya
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.
