chock

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /tʃɒk/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /t͡ʃɑk/
  • Homophone: chalk (cot–caught merger)
• Rhymes: -ɒk

From Middle English *chokke (possibly attested in Middle English chokkefull), from Anglo-Norman choque (compare modern Norman chouque), from an Old Northern French variant of Old French çouche, çouche (“block, log”), of Celtic origin, from Gaulish *tsukka (compare Breton soc’h (“thick”), Old Irish tócht (“part, piece”), itself borrowed from Proto-Germanic *stukkaz. Doublet of stock.

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^[1], page 82:

     On April 28, 1927, on Dutch Flats, below San Diego, Charles Lindbergh signaled chocks-away to those on the ground below him. A young mechanic named Douglas Corrigan nipped under the wing and pulled them away. Lindbergh gunned the plane and rolled it over the baked clay surface of the field, then gave it full throttle.

   • 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 likely 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

1. Representing a dull sound.
   • 1927 September 4, “Huckstering Not a Good Practice: In Neighborhood Stores It Is Calculated to Alienate Customers”, in The New York Times (section 2)‎^[2], volume LXXVI, number 25,425, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 9 September 2025, page 14, column 3:

     This chair, which had been purchased by a certain man as a birthday present for his wife, developed an annoying “chock, chock” noise after it had been used a few days.

   • 2000 April 6, Jane Smiley, “Jack Russell”, in Horse Heaven, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, →ISBN, page 13:

     With his eyes closed, Al could hear her drop the pinecone rhythmically on the tile, chock chock chock chock, the bass, her little toenails clicking a tune around it. Didn’t he deserve a really big horse?

   • 2011 May 8, Emma Townshend, “Wakehurst Place: Kew's country cousin is as accessible as tricky terrains come”, in The Independent‎^[3], London: Independent News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 7 July 2022:

     The light is still that bright-green shining through new leaves, and from afar we hear pheasants calling: a smart chock, chock call not quite sufficiently suggestive of their epic dumbness.

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

1. To make a dull sound.
   • 1927 September 4, “Huckstering Not a Good Practice: In Neighborhood Stores It Is Calculated to Alienate Customers”, in The New York Times (section 2)‎^[4], volume LXXVI, number 25,425, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 9 September 2025, page 14, column 3:

     After some delay an apparently new chair was returned to the purchaser, and the incident seemed closed. Within forty-eight hours, however, it began to “chock” like the first chair, which it really was. The dealer had merely glued it up again and returned it.

   • 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”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• Partridge, Eric (2006): Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English

From French choc.

• Rhymes: -ɔk

chock c

1. shock

• chock in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• chock in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• chock in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)