occlude

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To cause to become closed; obstruct: occlude an artery.
2. v. To prevent the passage of: occlude light; occlude the flow of blood.
3. v. Chemistry To absorb or adsorb and retain (a substance).
4. v. Meteorology To force (air) upward from the earth's surface, as when a cold front overtakes and undercuts a warm front.
5. v. Dentistry To bring together (the upper and lower teeth) in proper alignment for chewing.
6. v. Dentistry To close so that the cusps fit together. Used of the teeth of the upper and lower jaws.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To shut up; close.
2. In physics and chem., to absorb: specifically applied to the absorption of a gas by a metal, such as iron, platinum, or palladium. particularly at a high temperature. Thus, palladium heated to redness and cooled in a current of hydrogen absorbs or occludes over 900 times its volume of the gas. By this means the physical properties of the metal are changed, and the occluded hydrogen is regarded as existing in a solid form as a quasi-metal, called hydrogenium, the specific heat, specific gravity, and electrical conductivity of which have been approximately determined. Probably a part of the gas forms also a definite chemical compound with the metal. Occluded gases also occur in meteorites. Thus, the Arva meteoric iron yielded (Wright) 47 volumes of the mixed gases carbon dioxid, carbon monoxid, hydrogen, and nitrogen.

Wiktionary

1. v. To obstruct, cover, or otherwise block an opening.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To shut up; to close.
2. v. To take in and retain; to absorb; -- said especially with respect to gases.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. block passage through