choke

1 verb

1 STOP BREATHING (I, T) to prevent someone from breathing, or to be prevented from breathing, because your throat is blocked or because there is not enough air: The fumes were choking me.

(+ on): He choked to death on a fish bone.

2 INJURE (T) to prevent someone from breathing and hurt them by putting your hands around their throat and pressing on it: Stop it - you're choking me!

3 BLOCK (I, T) to fill an area or passage so that it is difficult to move through it: Weeds choked the canal. | The roads were choked with traffic.

4 VOICE (I, T) if your voice is choked or you choke with laughter or anger, your emotions make your voice sound strange and not very loud

(+ with): "She's been raped," he said in a voice choked with emotion.

5 SAY STH (T) also choke sth out to say something one word or phrase at a time in a strange voice, because you are very upset or angry or because you have been laughing: "George," he choked out, "is that you, George?"

6 SPORTS (I) AmE informal to fail at doing something, especially a sport, because there is a lot of pressure on you: They choked in the playoffs and lost the series 4 games to 2.

7 PLANTS (T) to kill a plant by surrounding it with other plants that take away its light and room to grow: The thistles choked the corn.

8 choke a horse AmE spoken if something is big enough to choke a horse, it is very big or larger than usual: a wad of bills big enough to choke a horse

choke sth back phrasal verb (T) to control your anger, sadness etc so that you do not show it: I stood there trembling and trying to choke back the tears. choke sth down phrasal verb (T)

1 to eat something with difficulty, especially because you are ill or upset: He managed to choke down a sandwich.

2 to choke something back

choke off phrasal verb (T) to prevent someone from doing something or stop something happening: A higher interest rate will choke off the demand for money. choke up phrasal verb (I) be choked up to be very upset about something: She and Mark broke up last week, and she's pretty choked up about it. 2 noun

1 (C) a piece of equipment in a vehicle that controls the amount of air going into the engine, and that is used to help the engine start

2 (U) the controlling of the amount of air going into an engine by using this piece of equipment: Give it a bit more choke.

3 (C) the act or sound of choking