Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Squeezed together; jammed: The cheering fans were chock-a-block in the stands.
- adj. Completely filled; stuffed: "I recommend the north shore chowder, chockablock with pieces of seasonal fish” ( Charles Monaghan).
- adj. Nautical Drawn so close as to have the blocks touching. Used of a ship's hoisting tackle.
- adv. Chock: a hall that was chock-a-block full.
Wiktionary
- adj. alternative spelling of chockablock.
- adv. alternative spelling of chockablock.
Etymologies
- Alteration (influenced by chock) of block-a-block : block + a-2 + block. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The Standard Model, used by everyone working in high energy particle physics, is chock-a-block with renormalization.”
The Huffington Post: Clay Farris Naff: If Infinity Is The Devil, What Is God?
“The one on the north side of Centro, with hotels, fast food restaurants and "tourist services" chock-a-block?”
“Big show this week, chock-a-block full of genre film goodness!”
“The restaurants and coffee shops were chock-a-block: no seats, no possibility of service.”
“That is saying something about a half-century old 1,183-page novel chock-a-block full of lengthy speeches about philosophy, metaphysics, economics, politics, sex and money.”
The Huffington Post: Michael Shermer: Atlas Shrugged, But You Shouldn't
“The strong dose of fabric balances rooms that have a lot of leggy furniture and goes with any kind of interior scheme, from art-directed sleek to chock-a-block whimsy.”
“The rows in coach would be chock-a-block with families.”
“Hospital Records' nightlife outpost takes on the capital at the end of the week with a chock-a-block lineup.”
“Lily Allen's anti-piracy rant has made her notorious among copyfighters, who have subjected her site and her words to close scrutiny, discovering that Allen's website is chock-a-block with infringing scans of newspaper articles, infringing mix-tapes (even the rant she posted was lifted from Techdirt).”
“On many mornings, she sets aside a couple of hours, shuts the door of her office, which is chock-a-block with the kitsch that inspires her jewelry collections, and wills herself to be creative.”
The Wall Street Journal: The Serious Business of Pretty Pink Things
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘chock-a-block’.
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Hyphen Nation
Terms with multiple hyphens, such as rent-a-crowd. Not intended to be a see-how-many-words-one-can-string-together-with-hyphens-used-adjectively sort of list.
much-talked-of, vis-à-vis, tête-à-tête, rope-a-dope, will-o'-the-wisp, dick-a-tuesday, will-in-the-wisp, jack-o'-lantern, jack-with-a-lantern, ear-to-ear, whack-a-mole, no-man's-land and 205 more...
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Reduples
Go for it, brothers and sisters! I personally have been suffering long for lack of an open reduplicatives list
happy clappy, bribble-brabble, diddle-daddle, hugger-mugger, kikiriki, Bora-Bora, mahi-mahi, jingle-jangle, knick-knack paddy..., chit-chat, bon-bon, clapperclaw and 292 more...
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Chennessy's Words
philistine, messianic, dyad, cult, bourgeois, blot, ploy, polyglot, lingua franca, cumbersome, lumber, petit-bourgeois and 446 more...
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And another
retrocausality, brusque, gainsay, cheerio, jaundiced, chamois, caw, craw, fudge, bubbler, shebang, bolo and 244 more...
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Baron Luke's Collection
An assortment of words, which, when used, should inject some vibrancy into your day, hopefully expunging any ennui!
expunge, cogitate, elucidate, post-haste, rebarbative, recalcitrant, smite, absquatulate, forlorn, thole, nefarious, insubordination and 124 more...
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Three Sheets to the Wind
Common words or phrases of nautical origin that have taken on different or metaphorical meanings. Chained_bear and I tossed a coin over who would make the list. I won (or lost, depending on how you...
scuttlebutt, taken aback, brass monkey, boot camp, clean bill of health, three sheets to t..., the devil to pay, between the devil..., by and large, the whole nine yards, mind your ps and qs, slush fund and 116 more...
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Strewth Mate, or, The Antipodean Anhang
Aussie stuff that doesn't really belong in my other lists.
The name is a discreet tribute to Charles Cudworth and his essay: "Ye Olde Spuriosity Shoppe, or, Put it in the Anhang", whi...wagga wagga, woy woy, walla walla, wee waa, wollongong, cooee, lairy, australele, kafoops, bewdiful, nature strip, yonks and 42 more...
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The Mariner's Record
quay, gunwale, bosun, starboard, larboard, by and large, offing, scuttle, scuttlebutt, longshoreman, sextant, windfall and 54 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for chock-a-block.
yarb By hauling the reef-tackles chock-a-block we took the strain from the other earings, and passing the close-reef earing, and knotting the points carefully, we succeeded in setting the sail, close reefed.
- Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years Before the Mast, ch. 25 Sep 9, 2008
reesetee The present meaning (filled to capacity or overloaded) derives from a nautical term. The derivation of chock isn't entirely clear, but the word is thought to have come from chock-full (or "choke-full"), meaning "full to choking." This meaning was later used to name the wedges of wood used to secure moving objects. On sailing ships, a block and tackle pulley system was used to hoist the rigging. The phrase chock-a-block describes what occurs when the system is raised to its fullest extent, i.e., when there is no more rope free and the blocks jam tightly together. Dec 10, 2007