chock

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tʃɒk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /tʃɑk/
  • Homophone: chalk (cot-caught merger)
• Rhymes: -ɒk

From Anglo-Norman choque (compare modern Norman chouque), from Gaulish *'śokka (compare Breton soc’h (“thick”), Old Irish tócht (“part, piece”)), itself borrowed from Proto-Germanic *stukkaz.

chock (plural chocks)

1. Any object used as a wedge or filler, especially when placed behind a wheel to prevent it from rolling.
   • 2000, Leonard Mosley, Lindbergh: A Biography‎, page 82:

     On April 28, 1927, on Dutch Flats, below San Diego, Charles Lindbergh signaled chocks-away to those on the ground below him.

   • 2006, Paul Tawrell, Camping & Wilderness Survival: The Ultimate Outdoors Book:

     Artificial anchor points are those constructed from equipment carried by the team. These are usually the chocks or pitons placed in cracks or bolts drilled in the rock.

2. (nautical) Any fitting or fixture used to restrict movement, especially movement of a line; traditionally was a fixture near a bulwark with two horns pointing towards each other, with a gap between where the line can be inserted.

chock (third-person singular simple present chocks, present participle chocking, simple past and past participle chocked)

1. (transitive) To stop or fasten, as with a wedge, or block; to scotch.
   • 1915, Railway Line Clearances and Car Dimensions Including Weight Limitations of Railroads in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Cuba:

     Gondolas with drop or hopper doors not boarded over should have lading cleated and chocked so as to prevent shifting over doors.

   • 2010, J. C. McKenney, The Rainwoman, page 93:

     Alejandro jumped out and set the emergency brake (chocking the left rear wheel with a wood block he kept behind the cabina).

2. (intransitive, obsolete) To fill up, as a cavity.
   • 1662, Thomas Fuller, Worthies of England:

     When the bells ring, the wood-work thereof shaketh and grapeth (no defect, but perfect of structure), and exactly chocketh into the joynts again; so that it may pass for the lively embleme of the sincere Christian, who, though he hath motum trepidationis, of fear and trembling, stands firmly fixt on the basis of a true faith.

3. (nautical) To insert a line in a chock.

• unchock

(Note: chock full is not derived from this word. In fact, it is an alteration of the earlier choke-full, which most likelily derives from a variant of the word cheek.)

chock (not comparable)

1. (nautical) Entirely; quite.
   • 1857, Elisha Kent Kane, Arctic Explorations, page 431:

     Tom Hickey, our good-humored, blundering cabin-boy, decorated since poor Schubert's death with the dignities of cook, is in that little dirty cot on the starboard side; the rest are bedded in rows, Mr. Brooks and myself chock aft.

   • 1862, Dana's Seamen's Friend: Containing a Treatise on Practical Seamanship:

     Merchant vessels usually hoist a little on the halyards, so as to clear the sail from the top, then belay them and get the lee sheet chock home; then haul home the weather sheet, shivering the sail by the braces to help it home, and hoist on the halyards until the leaches are well taut, taking a turn with the braces, if the wind is fresh, and slacking them as the yard goes up.

French choquer. Compare shock (transitive verb).

chock (plural chocks)

1. (obsolete) An encounter.

chock (third-person singular simple present chocks, present participle chocking, simple past and past participle chocked)

1. (obsolete) To encounter.

Onomatopoeic.

chock (third-person singular simple present chocks, present participle chocking, simple past and past participle chocked)

1. To make a dull sound.
   • 1913, D.H. Lawrence, chapter 1, in Sons and Lovers:

     She saw him hurry to the door, heard the bolt chock. He tried the latch.

• “chock” in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN.÷
• chock at OneLook Dictionary Search
• Partridge, Eric (2006): Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English

chock c

1. shock