choke
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: chōk
ipa: /t͡ʃəʊk/
ipa: /t͡ʃoʊk/
rhymes: -əʊk
Forms: form: chokes
form: choking
form: choked
form: choked
form: choak
form: choake
form: chock
Etymology: From Middle English choken (also cheken), from earlier acheken, from Old English āċēocian (“to choke”), probably derived from Old English ċēoce, ċēace (“jaw, cheek”), see cheek. Cognate with Icelandic kok (“throat”), koka (“to gulp”). See also achoke.
Senses: examples: text: Ever since he choked on a bone, he has refused to eat fish.
text: Lenore began to choke with the fine dust and to feel her eyes smart and to see it settle on her hands and dress.
ref: 1919, Zane Grey, chapter 6, in The Desert of Wheat, New York: Grosset & Dunlap, page 66:
text: See your brain - Choke, choke, choke
Watch it drain - Choke, choke, choke
See your greed - Choke, choke, choke
Watch it breed - Choke, choke, choke
Fake, you're falling down
Choke, your neck is broken
ref: 1998, “Choke”, in Igor Cavalera, Andreas Kisser (music), Against, performed by Sepultura, Track 2:
text: Passengers on the earliest railway services would not even have enjoyed the luxury of a platform, instead having to step up onto the waiting open top wagons, where they would experience a journey that left many choking on the plumes of smoke exhaled by the leading locomotive.
ref: 2025 July 9, Oliver Wheeler, “Action stations...”, in RAIL, number 1039, page 68:
glosses: To be unable to breathe because of obstruction of the windpipe (for instance food or other objects that go down the wrong way, or fumes or particles in the air that cause the throat to constrict).
examples: text: The collar of this shirt is too tight; it’s choking me.
text: With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:
ref: 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene 1]:
text: Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Luke 8:33:
text: The man became insane; he stood over me, choking me with one fist and beating me in the face with the other […]
ref: 1918, Willa Cather, chapter 15, in My Ántonia, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, pages 282–283:
synonyms: asphyxiate
strangle
suffocate
throttle
glosses: To prevent (someone) from breathing or talking by strangling or filling the windpipe.
examples: text: to choke a cave passage with boulders and mud
text: This was a Passage, so rugged, so uneven, and choaked with so many Thorns and Briars, that it was a melancholy Spectacle to behold the Pains and Difficulties which both Sexes suffered who walked through it.
ref: 1709 January 14, Joseph Addison, “The lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff Esq.”, in The Tatler, volume 3, number 120, London, published 1712, page 31:
text: But at Christmas the pavements were crowded with overdressed shoppers from the country, the streets choked with slow but strident traffic.
ref: 1961, V. S. Naipaul, A House for Mr Biswas, Penguin, published 1992, Part 2, Chapter 4, p. 492:
text: There have been predictions that within a few years all roads within a 17-mile radius of the Airport will be choked.
ref: 1962 April, “London Airport rail link”, in Modern Railways, page 222:
text: The waterfall is now a trickle, and the pool is choked with algae and drowned leaves and broken-off branches.
ref: 2012, Tan Twan Eng, chapter 13, in The Garden of Evening Mists, New York: Weinstein Books, page 168:
synonyms: block up
bung up
clog
congest
jam
obstruct
stop up
glosses: To obstruct (a passage, etc.) by filling it up or clogging it.
examples: text: Now ’tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted;
Suffer them now, and they’ll o’ergrow the garden
And choke the herbs for want of husbandry.
ref: 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:
text: And some [seeds] fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them:
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 13:7:
text: 1697, John Dryden (translator), “The Fifth Pastoral,” lines 55-56, in The Works of Virgil, London: Jacob Tonson, p. 22,
No fruitful Crop the sickly Fields return;
But Oats and Darnel choak the rising Corn.
text: I have cut maize stalks or green plants with which he means to choke the flames.
ref: 1998, Nuruddin Farah, chapter 3, in Secrets, Penguin, published 1999, page 67:
synonyms: choke out
stifle
glosses: To hinder or check, as growth, expansion, progress, etc.; to kill (a plant by robbing it of nutrients); to extinguish (fire by robbing it of oxygen).
examples: text: He has a lot of talent, but he tends to choke under pressure.
ref: 2021, The Milwaukee Brewers choked in the playoffs:
text: “I can’t say that I choked on those match points,” Williams said. “She literally played her best tennis ever on those shots.”
ref: 2019 January 22, “1 Point Away, Serena Stunned by Pliskova at Australian Open”, in The New York Times:
glosses: To perform badly at a crucial stage of a competition, especially when one appears to be clearly winning.
examples: text: A brief tryout will demonstrate that the modified grip does indeed make it difficult to “choke” the pencil or apply excessive pressure to the paper.
ref: 1973, Wayne Otto et al., chapter 13, in Corrective and Remedial Teaching, 2nd edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, page 361:
glosses: To move one's fingers very close to the tip of a pencil, brush or other art tool.
examples: text: Take a grip with your right hand, slightly choked down from your normal grip.
ref: 2014, Roger Fredericks, The Flexible Golf Swing, page 108:
topics: ball-games
baseball
games
golf
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: To hold the club or bat lower on the shaft in order to shorten one's swing.
examples: text: […] the words choked in his throat.
ref: 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XVIII, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:
text: Speech choked in Eugene’s throat.
ref: 1929, Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel, New York: Modern Library, Part 3, Chapter 29, p. 413:
synonyms: stick
glosses: To be checked or stopped, as if by choking
examples: text: A hundred times fain he would have spoke, but still his rising Passion choak’d his Words;
ref: 1684, Aphra Behn, “The Amours of Philander and Silvia”, in Love-Letters between a Noble-man and his Sister, London, page 277:
text: […] tears choked the utterance of the dame de compagnie, and she buried her crushed affections and her poor old red nose in her pocket handkerchief.
ref: 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 14, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:
text: At that I opened my mouth to speak, and found a hoarse phlegm choked my voice.
ref: 1896, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “Chapter 9”, in The Island of Doctor Moreau (Heinemann’s Colonial Library of Popular Fiction; 52), London: William Heinemann, →OCLC; republished as The Island of Doctor Moreau: A Possibility, New York, N.Y.: Stone & Kimball, 1896, →OCLC:
text: Her laugh got choked by a sob.
ref: 1905, William John Locke, chapter 20, in The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne:
text: Danny let out a soft, half-choked, trembling moan.
ref: 1967, Chaim Potok, chapter 18, in The Chosen, New York: Ballantine, published 1982, page 282:
glosses: To check or stop (an utterance or voice) as if by choking.
examples: text: Grobstock began to choke with chagrin.
ref: 1894, Israel Zangwill, chapter 2, in The King of Schnorrers, New York: Macmillan, page 48:
text: 2007, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Knopf Doubleday, Book 3, p. 435,
Tajirika felt himself choking with anger. How dare those hussies interfere with his business?
glosses: To have a feeling of strangulation in one's throat as a result of passion or strong emotion.
examples: text: […] I am very sensible how much the Gentlemen of Wit and Pleasure are apt to murmur, and be choqued at the Sight of so many daggled-tail Parsons, who happen to fall in their Way, and offend their Eyes […]
ref: 1712, Jonathan Swift, “An Argument Against Abolishing Christianity”, in The Works of J.S., volume 1, Dublin: George Faulkner, published 1735, page 104:
text: I shall run distracted. My rage choaks me.
ref: 1773, Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer, London: F. Newbery, act IV, page 80:
text: And my remembrance of them both, choking me, I broke down […] and laid my face in my hands upon the table.
ref: 1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 13, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:
text: Charlotte made herself stiff, controlling sudden choking emotion.
ref: 1971, Iris Murdoch, An Accidental Man, New York: Viking, page 42:
glosses: To give (someone) a feeling of strangulation as a result of passion or strong emotion.
examples: text: ‘There is the padre!’ Kim choked as bare-headed Father Victor sailed down upon them from the veranda.
ref: 1901, Rudyard Kipling, chapter 6, in Kim:
text: “The bastards!” he choked. “I hope they are all caught and hanged!”
ref: 1995, Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance, London: Faber and Faber, published 1997, Epilogue, p. 583:
glosses: To say (something) with one’s throat constricted (due to emotion, for example).
examples: text: The engine caught, spluttered, and roared as Tom choked the car delicately.
ref: 1939, John Steinbeck, chapter 26, in The Grapes of Wrath, New York: Viking, published 1962, page 492:
glosses: To use the choke valve of (a vehicle) to adjust the air/fuel mixture in the engine.
qualifier: fluid mechanics
glosses: To reach a condition of maximum flowrate, due to the flow at the narrowest point of the duct becoming sonic (Ma = 1).
raw_tags: of a duct
glosses: To make or install a choke, as in a cartridge, or in the bore of the barrel of a shotgun.