block

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A solid piece of a hard substance, such as wood, having one or more flat sides.
2. n. Such a piece used as a construction member or as a support.
3. n. Such a piece upon which chopping or cutting is done: a butcher's block.
4. n. Such a piece upon which persons are beheaded.
5. n. One of a set of small wooden or plastic pieces, such as a cube, bar, or cylinder, used as a building toy.
6. n. Printing A large amount of text.
7. n. Sports A starting block.
8. n. A stand from which articles are displayed and sold at an auction: Many priceless antiques went on the block.
9. n. A mold or form on which an item is shaped or displayed: a hat block.
10. n. A substance, such as wood or stone, that has been prepared for engraving.
11. n. A pulley or a system of pulleys set in a casing.
12. n. An engine block.
13. n. A bloc.
14. n. A set of like items, such as shares of stock, sold or handled as a unit.
15. n. A group of four or more unseparated postage stamps forming a rectangle.
16. n. Canadian A group of townships in an unsurveyed area.
17. n. A usually rectangular section of a city or town bounded on each side by consecutive streets.
18. n. A segment of a street bounded by consecutive cross streets and including its buildings and inhabitants.
19. n. A large building divided into separate units, such as apartments.
20. n. A length of railroad track controlled by signals.
21. n. The act of obstructing.
22. n. Something that obstructs; an obstacle.
23. n. Sports An act of bodily obstruction, as of a player or ball.
24. n. Football Legal interference with an opposing player to clear the path of the ball carrier.
25. n. Medicine Interruption or obstruction of a physiological function: nerve block.
26. n. Psychology A sudden cessation of speech or a thought process without an immediate observable cause, sometimes considered a consequence of repression. Also called mental block.
27. n. Slang The human head: threatened to knock my block off.
28. n. A blockhead.
29. v. To shape into a block or blocks.
30. v. To support, strengthen, or retain in place by means of a block.
31. v. To shape, mold, or form with or on a block: block a hat.
32. v. To stop or impede the passage of or movement through; obstruct: block traffic.
33. v. To shut out from view: a curtain blocking the stage.
34. v. To stop the passage of (a motion or bill) in a legislative assembly.
35. v. To indicate broadly without great detail; sketch. Often used with out: block out a plan of action; block out stage movements.
36. v. Sports To impede the movement of (an opponent or the ball) by physical interference.
37. v. Medicine To interrupt or obstruct the proper functioning of (a physiological process), especially by the use of drugs.
38. v. Psychology To fail to remember.
39. v. To run (trains) on a block system.
40. v. Sports To obstruct the movement of an opponent.
41. v. To suffer a mental block. Often used with on: I blocked on his name.
42. block out To cover over so as to be illegible: block out sensitive information from a document before releasing it.
43. block out To repress (a traumatic event, for example) from conscious memory.
44. idiom. go on the block To be offered for sale.
45. idiom. out of the blocks From a starting position, as in a race or contest: The company has in the past been slow out of the blocks to adapt to consumer tastes.
46. idiom. put on the block To offer for sale.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Any solid mass of matter, usually with one or more plane or approximately plane faces: as, a block of wood, stone, or ice; sometimes, specifically, a log of wood.
2. n. A solid mass of wood the upper surface of which is used for some specific purpose. In particular— The large piece of wood on which a butcher chops meat, or on which fire-wood is split.
3. n. The piece of wood on which is placed the neck of a person condemned to be decapitated.
4. n. A piece of hard wood prepared for cutting by an engraver.
5. n. The stand on which a slave was placed when being sold by auction.
6. n. In falconry, the perch whereon a bird of prey is kept.
7. n. A mass of wood or stone used in mounting and dismounting; a horse-block.
8. n. A mold or piece on which something is shaped, or placed to make it keep in shape. In particular— The wooden mold on which a hat is formed; hence, sometimes, the shape or style of a hat, or the hat itself.
9. n. A wooden head for a wig; a barber's block; hence, sometimes, the wig itself.
10. n. A person with no more sense or life than a block; a blockhead; a stupid fellow.
11. n. In ship-building, one of the pieces of timber, or supports constructed from such pieces, upon which the keel is laid.
12. n. The solid metal stamp used by bookbinders for impressing a design on a book-cover.
13. n. A piece of wood fitted into the angle formed by the meeting edges of two other pieces.
14. n. A wooden rubber covered with thick felt, used in polishing marble.
15. n. A piece of wood or metal serving as a support. In a sawmill, one of the frames supporting and feeding the log to the saw.
16. n. A mechanical contrivance consisting of one or more grooved pulleys mounted in a casing or shell, which is furnished with a hook, eye, or strap by which it may be attached: it is used to transmit power, or change the direction of motion, by means of a rope or chain passing round the movable pulleys. Blocks are single, double, treble, or fourfold, according as the number of sheaves or pulleys is one, two, three, or four. A running block is attached to the object to be raised or moved; a standing block is fixed to some permanent support. Blocks also receive different names from their shape, purpose, or mode of application. Those to which the name deadeyes has been given are not pulleys, being unprovided with sheaves. Many of the blocks used in ships are named after the ropes or chains which are rove through them: as, bowline blocks, clue-line and clue-garnet blocks. They are made of either wood or metal.
17. n. A connected mass of buildings: as, a block of houses.
18. n. A portion of a city inclosed by streets, whether occupied by buildings or consisting of vacant lots.
19. n. On the stock-exchange, a large number of shares massed together and bought or sold in a lump.
20. To strengthen or support by blocks; make firm, as two boards at their inferior angle of intersection, by pieces of wood glued together.
21. To form into blocks.
22. To mold, shape, or stretch on a block: as, to block a hat.
23. In bookbinding, to ornament by means of brass stamps; stamp: as, to block the boards of a book.
24. In calico-printing, to press up or apply to the blocks containing the colors.
25. To straighten and toughen by laying on a block of wood and striking with a narrow, flat-faced hammer; planish: said of saw-blades.
26. n. Any obstruction or cause of obstruction; a stop; a hindrance; an obstacle.
27. n. Hence The state of being blocked or stopped up; a stoppage, as of carriages: as, a block on a railway; a block in the street.
28. To hinder passage from or to; prevent ingress or egress; stop up; obstruct by placing obstacles in the way: often followed by up: as, to block up a town or a road.
29. In base-ball and cricket, to stop (a ball) with the bat without knocking it to a distance.
30. In foot-ball, to stop (a player) when running with the ball.
31. n. A block-like form of castiron or steel used by angle-smiths in shipbuilding instead of an anvil. They are of various shapes and are named from their special uses, as splitting-blocks, bending-blocks, welding-blocks, joggling-and-offsetting blocks, etc.
32. n. Hence — The engraving or plate itself.
33. n. One of the sections into which the colonies of Australia are divided. See back-blocks.
34. n. In railroading, the space or distance on a track between two signals; one of the short divisions into which a railroad is divided for signaling purposes, irrespective of the particular signal-system employed. See block-signal, and signaling.
35. n. In ceramics, the original model from which the block-mold is cast. See block-mold.
36. n. In geology, a portion of the earth's crust separated by fracture from the adjacent parts, and usually uplifted or depressed with respect to them.
37. n. In violin-making, a triangular piece of wood within one of the projecting corners of the waist, to which the ribs, belly, and back are glued and by which the solidity and strength of the whole is largely secured. Usually called corner-block. As the waist has two corners on either side, the number of blocks is four. The introduction of corners and blocks in the fifteenth century marks a decided transition in the evolution of the true violin from the older lute.
38. n. In forestry, the unit of management treated in a working-plan. A block contains always two, but usually many more, compartments.
39. n. In stock-raising, any animal of a stocky, stout, compact, and well-made form: opposed to a loosely formed or rangy animal.
40. n. In irrigation, the method of applying water to the ground within small, regularly placed levees or dikes.
41. To secure (an electrotype or photo-engraved plate) upon a block of wood or metal, to make it type-high.
42. In sugar-beet growing, to remove, by the hoe or a machine, sections from thickly sown rows so as to leave blocks or bunches from 6 to 10 inches apart, which are then thinned by hand to one plant each; to bunch.
43. n. In cricket: A batsman's guard; the position in which he holds his bat upon the ground previous to striking.
44. n. A block-hole.
45. n. The stopping with the bat of a ball which is pitched in the block-hole.
46. n. A batsman who acts entirely on the defensive.
47. In card-playing, to hold up a high card in order to prevent an adversary from making smaller ones later on.

Wiktionary

1. n. A substantial, often approximately cuboid, piece of any substance.
2. n. A chopping block; a cuboid of wood, plastic or other material used as a base on which to cut something.
3. n. A group of urban lots of property, several acres in extent, not crossed by public streets.
4. n. A residential building consisting of flats.
5. n. The distance from one street to another in a city that is built (approximately) to a grid pattern.
6. n. slang The human head;
7. n. A wig block: a simplified head model upon which wigs are worn.
8. n. A set of sheets (of paper) joined together at one end.
9. n. nautical Used with ropes or cables to facilitate lifting loads.
10. n. computing A logical data storage unit containing one or more physical sectors (see cluster).
11. n. computing A region of code in a program that acts as a single unit, such as a function or loop.
12. n. rigging A case with one or more sheaves/pulleys, used with ropes to increase or redirect force, for example, as part of the rigging of a sailing ship.
13. n. chemistry A portion of a macromolecule, comprising many units, that has at least one feature not present in adjacent portions.
14. n. Something that prevents something from passing (see blockage).
15. n. sports An action to interfere with the movement of an opposing player or of the object of play (ball, puck).
16. n. cricket A shot played by holding the bat vertically in the path of the ball, so that it loses momentum and drops to the ground.
17. n. volleyball A defensive play by one or more players meant to deflect a spiked ball back to the hitter’s court.
18. n. philately A joined group of four (or in some cases nine) postage stamps, forming a roughly square shape.
19. n. A section of split logs used as fuel.
20. n. common misspelling of bloc.
21. v. transitive To fill (something) so that it is not possible to pass.
22. v. transitive To prevent (something or someone) from passing.
23. v. transitive To prevent (something from happening or someone from doing something).
24. v. transitive, sports To impede an opponent.
25. v. transitive, theater To specify the positions and movements of the actors.
26. v. transitive, cricket To hit with a block.
27. v. intransitive, cricket To play a block shot.
28. v. transitive To disable communication via telephone, instant messaging, etc., with an undesirable someone.
29. v. computing (intransitive) To wait.
30. v. transitive To stretch or mould (a knitted item, a hat, etc.) into the desired shape.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A piece of wood more or less bulky; a solid mass of wood, stone, etc., usually with one or more plane, or approximately plane, faces
2. n. The solid piece of wood on which condemned persons lay their necks when they are beheaded.
3. n. The wooden mold on which hats, bonnets, etc., are shaped. The pattern or shape of a hat.
4. n. A large or long building divided into separate houses or shops, or a number of houses or shops built in contact with each other so as to form one building; a row of houses or shops.
5. n. A square, or portion of a city inclosed by streets, whether occupied by buildings or not.
6. n. A grooved pulley or sheave incased in a frame or shell which is provided with a hook, eye, or strap, by which it may be attached to an object. It is used to change the direction of motion, as in raising a heavy object that can not be conveniently reached, and also, when two or more such sheaves are compounded, to change the rate of motion, or to exert increased force; -- used especially in the rigging of ships, and in tackles.
7. n. (Falconry) The perch on which a bird of prey is kept.
8. n. Any obstruction, or cause of obstruction; a stop; a hindrance; an obstacle; -- also called blockage; ; a block in a biochemical pathway.
9. n. A piece of box or other wood for engravers' work.
10. n. (Print.) A piece of hard wood (as mahogany or cherry) on which a stereotype or electrotype plate is mounted to make it type high.
11. n. obsolete A blockhead; a stupid fellow; a dolt.
12. n. A section of a railroad where the block system is used. See Block system, below.
13. n. In Australia, one of the large lots into which public land, when opened to settlers, is divided by the government surveyors.
14. n. rare, rare The position of a player or bat when guarding the wicket.
15. n. rare, rare A block hole.
16. n. rare The popping crease.
17. n. a number of individual items sold as a unit.
18. n. the length of one side of a city block{5}, traversed along any side.
19. n. a halt in a mental process, especially one due to stress, memory lapse, confusion, etc..
20. n. (computers) a quantity of binary-encoded information transferred, or stored, as a unit to, from, or on a data storage device.
21. n. (computers) a number of locations in a random-access memory allocated to storage of specific data.
22. v. To obstruct so as to prevent passage or progress; to prevent passage from, through, or into, by obstructing the way; -- used both of persons and things; -- often followed by up.
23. v. To secure or support by means of blocks; to secure, as two boards at their angles of intersection, by pieces of wood glued to each.
24. v. To shape on, or stamp with, a block.
25. v. to cause (any activity) to halt by creating an obstruction.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. shape into a block or blocks
2. n. housing in a large building that is divided into separate units
3. v. interrupt the normal function of by means of anesthesia
4. v. render unsuitable for passage
5. v. stamp or emboss a title or design on a book with a block
6. n. the act of obstructing or deflecting someone's movements
7. n. a rectangular area in a city surrounded by streets and usually containing several buildings
8. n. a simple machine consisting of a wheel with a groove in which a rope can run to change the direction or point of application of a force applied to the rope
9. v. prohibit the conversion or use of (assets)
10. v. interfere with or prevent the reception of signals
11. n. a number or quantity of related things dealt with as a unit
12. v. impede the movement of (an opponent or a ball)
13. v. stop from happening or developing
14. n. an inability to remember or think of something you normally can do; often caused by emotional tension
15. v. obstruct.
16. n. a three-dimensional shape with six square or rectangular sides
17. n. a metal casting containing the cylinders and cooling ducts of an engine
18. n. a platform from which an auctioneer sells
19. v. be unable to remember
20. v. support, secure, or raise with a block
21. v. shape by using a block
22. n. a solid piece of something (usually having flat rectangular sides)
23. v. shut out from view or get in the way so as to hide from sight
24. n. an obstruction in a pipe or tube
25. v. block passage through
26. v. hinder or prevent the progress or accomplishment of
27. v. run on a block system
28. n. (computer science) a sector or group of sectors that function as the smallest data unit permitted