occlude
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
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Dentistry. to shut or close, with the cusps of the opposing teeth of the upper and lower jaws fitting together.
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Meteorology. to form an occluded front.
verb
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(tr) to block or stop up (a passage or opening); obstruct
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(tr) to prevent the passage of
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(tr) chem (of a solid) to incorporate (a substance) by absorption or adsorption
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meteorol to form or cause to form an occluded front
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dentistry to produce or cause to produce occlusion, as in chewing
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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occludesimple
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occludessimple
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have occludedperfect
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has occludedperfect
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am occludingprogressive
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are occludingprogressive
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is occludingprogressive
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have been occludingperfect progressive
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has been occludingperfect progressive
Past
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occludedsimple
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had occludedperfect
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was occludingprogressive
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were occludingprogressive
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had been occludingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of occlude
1590–1600; < Latin occlūdere to shut up, close up, equivalent to oc- oc- + -clūdere, combining form of claudere to close
Explanation
Occlude means to obstruct, as with an opening. You hear this a lot in a medical context. Heart surgeons are looking for occlusions in blood vessels — things that occlude the flow of blood. Occlude does not exist only in a medical context. If you close the bathroom door so your little brother won't come in while you're trying out makeup with your friends, you're occluding the bathroom. Meanwhile, your makeup occludes your pores.
Vocabulary lists containing occlude
Case Closed: Clud, Clus
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100 SAT words Beginning with "O"
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It's All a Blur: Synonyms for "Unclear"
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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:
To improve this, Dr Alexander suggests reducing headphone use time and using the transparency mode which can amplify the background noise as well as wearing headphones that don't completely occlude or block the ears.
From BBC ● Feb. 15, 2025
It would lead to voter confusion, especially since clerks would inevitably place some stickers a few centimeters off by accident, failing to fully occlude Kennedy’s name and accidentally blocking out another.
From Slate ● Sep. 24, 2024
Such clouds are why the star count methods failed: From almost any viewpoint in the galaxy, they would occlude your line of sight and produce the illusion of gazing out from near the center.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 4, 2023
He confided to me on another night that like so many people he has tried to hire, he knows that working for Breitbart will occlude his future.
From New York Times ● Aug. 16, 2017
While not sufficiently tight to occlude the urethral canal, still a firm, indurated band remained after the string was cut, and did not disappear for four or five days.
From History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance by Remondino, Peter Charles
It’s also not feminist because it occludes the men who were killed based on the same lies.
From Slate ● Oct. 29, 2023
But I also think that the focus on Florida occludes a bigger story.
From Salon ● Feb. 7, 2023
Framing major domestic disasters through the lens of war occludes a role for civilians on the front line, displacing them from our national narratives.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 9, 2022
Finally, it occludes the extent to which history doesn’t repeat itself but does rhyme.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 25, 2018
In Bacon, its first creator, materialism still occludes within itself the germs of a many-sided development.
From Socialism: Utopian and Scientific by Engels, Friedrich
Ms. Kiri, who is on camera almost nonstop and is in close-up much of the time, expertly holds our attention as her character’s skepticism about the paranormal world becomes increasingly occluded by worry.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 12, 2026
Just a few rows back from the front of the stage, I watched as patches of brown, well-trodden grass — once largely visible minutes earlier — became steadily occluded by hundreds of feet.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2024
“I was living in an occluded hallucination,” she says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 13, 2024
Some machine-learning approaches employ generative AI models that try to guess what lies in the occluded regions, but these models can hallucinate objects that aren't really there.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 18, 2024
I wished still to cry, and attempted it again; and once again, my effort failed, all tears occluded.
From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume II: The Kingdom on the Waves" by M.T. Anderson
“Concerns are held for the occupants of these two vehicles due to serious weather conditions” that have hampered the search effort, with low clouds occluding an aerial search, a spokesman for the police said.
From New York Times ● Mar. 12, 2024
This image was taken by JWST’s NIRCam, allowing it to capture previously hidden features within and behind the occluding dust.
From Scientific American ● Jul. 21, 2022
His team beat Oklahoma, 21-14, in the Sugar Bowl national title game Jan. 4, 2004, and it was a matter of labor occluding art rather than today’s splashy fashion of art occluding labor.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 11, 2021
It is when working out takes over your life, occluding all else – work, family, friends – that you have a problem.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 17, 2019
But deep in the fields the brownish stalks rise from the earth to more than twice her height, occluding her vision.
From "Dreaming in Cuban" by Cristina García
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.
