chock
/t͡ʃɑk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.86 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any object used as a wedge or filler, especially when placed behind a wheel to prevent it from rolling.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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."
- "Gondolas with drop or hopper doors not boarded over should have lading cleated and chocked so as to prevent shifting over doors."
- "Alejandro jumped out and set the emergency brake (chocking the left rear wheel with a wood block he kept behind the cabina)."
- "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."
- "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."
Etymology
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 a metathetic borrowing of Proto-Germanic *stukkaz (“stick, stock, piece of wood”). Doublet of stock.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /t͡ʃɑk/
- British English: /tʃɒk/