Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A device operated by a key, combination, or keycard and used, as on a door, for holding, closing, or securing.
  • noun A section of a waterway, such as a canal, closed off with gates, in which vessels in transit are raised or lowered by raising or lowering the water level of that section.
  • noun A mechanism in a firearm for exploding the charge.
  • noun An interlocking or entanglement of elements or parts.
  • noun Sports A hold in wrestling or self-defense that is secured on a part of an opponent's body.
  • noun A secure hold; control.
  • noun A sure thing; a certainty.
  • intransitive verb To fasten the lock of.
  • intransitive verb To shut or make secure with or as if with locks.
  • intransitive verb To confine or exclude by or as if by means of a lock.
  • intransitive verb To fix in place so that movement or escape is impossible; hold fast.
  • intransitive verb To sight and follow (a moving target) automatically.
  • intransitive verb To aim (a weapon or other device) at a moving target so as to follow it automatically.
  • intransitive verb To clasp or link firmly; intertwine or interlock.
  • intransitive verb To bind in close struggle or battle.
  • intransitive verb To equip (a waterway) with locks.
  • intransitive verb To pass (a vessel) through a lock.
  • intransitive verb To invest (funds) in such a way that they cannot easily be converted into cash.
  • intransitive verb To arrange or secure (an interest rate) for a loan.
  • intransitive verb To end the processing of (a magnetic tape or disk) in such a way as to deny access to its contents.
  • intransitive verb To protect (a file) from changes or deletion.
  • intransitive verb To become fastened by or as if by means of a lock.
  • intransitive verb To become entangled or jammed; interlock.
  • intransitive verb To become rigid or immobile.
  • intransitive verb To pass through a lock or locks in a waterway.
  • idiom (lock horns) To become embroiled in conflict.
  • idiom (lock lips) To engage in a long kiss.
  • idiom (lock, stock, and barrel) To the greatest or most complete extent; wholly.
  • idiom (under lock and key) Securely locked up.
  • noun A length or curl of hair; a tress.
  • noun The hair of the head.
  • noun A small wisp or tuft, as of wool or cotton.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Anything that fastens something else; specifically, an appliance for securing in position a door, gate, window, drawer, lid, etc., when closed, by means of a key, or of some secret contrivance requiring manipulation by one to whom it is known; hence, any device that prevents movement.
  • noun A forelock; a cotter or key.
  • noun In firearms, a piece of mechanism which explodes the charge.
  • noun A form of brake or drag for the wheels of a vehicle, used to prevent them from turning in descending steep hills; a lock-chain or skid-chain.
  • noun The swerving to the right or left of the fore-carriage, deviating from the line of direction of the hind wheels and the trend of the carriages proper. It is called the haw or gee lock respectively, according as it is to the left or right of the driver.
  • noun In plastering, the projection of the plaster, cement, etc., behind the laths, which serves to prevent it from scaling off.
  • noun A place shut in or locked up; an inclosure; a lockup.
  • noun A barrier to confine the water of a stream or canal; an inclosure in a canal, with gates at each end, used in raising or lowering boats as they pass from one level to another.
  • noun A fastening together; a closing of one thing upon another; a state of being fixed or immovable; also, a grapple in wrestling; a hug.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English loc, bolt, bar.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English locc.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English locc. Cognate with Old Norse lokkr (whence Danish lok), German Locke. It has been theorised that the word may be related to the Gothic verb 𐌻𐌿𐌺𐌰𐌽 (lukan, "to shut") in its ancient meaning to curb.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Old English lūcan

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Examples

  • Then check to see that the callback is hit when you change any records void OnSiteMapChanged (string key, object item, CacheItemRemovedReason reason) lock (_lock) if (key = = _cacheDependencyName & & reason = =

    ASP.NET Forums 2009

  • Like Italian autoloaders, it has a bolt lock, and on the SA-08, the lock is a little button on the side of the trigger guard that takes some getting used to.

    Uncategorized Blog Posts 2009

  • Assuming the lock is a simple warded one, it doesn't seem that it's possible to unlock this chest and leave it unlocked.

    Lovely Locks Heather McDougal 2008

  • The bridge collapse was in what we refer to as our lock and dam number one pool.

    CNN Transcript Aug 3, 2007 2007

  • DARRELL HAMMOND, ACTOR (as Al Gore): I would put it in what I call a lock box.

    CNN Transcript Sep 28, 2001 2001

  • This is perhaps one of the most closely watched unemployment releases that I can remember, a big crowd inside what we call the lock-up, where reporters are brought in, given release half an hour ahead of time but kept in a locked room until precisely 8: 30, when we can report.

    CNN Transcript - Breaking News: Unemployment Rate at 4.2 Percent - February 2, 2001 2001

  • However, the lock is always a very complicated molecule of high molecular weight, a protein or a nucleic acid.

    The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1987 - Presentation Speech 1987

  • There is precedent for the latter approach in Swedish lock maker Assa Abloy AB's recent deal for rival Cardo AB.

    Smiths Deserves a Full Bid 2011

  • Would you prefer a forum where what you refer to as "experience sharing" were in lock step among respondents and therefore unenlightening for the questioner?

    Drinking the water in Mexico 2009

  • Would you prefer a forum where what you refer to as "experience sharing" were in lock step among respondents and therefore unenlightening for the questioner?

    Drinking the water in Mexico 2009

  • There was the dreaded heparin lock, an intravenous tube embedded in a vein of my arm that provided the nurses and doctors with quick access to my blood.

    I Was a 4-Year-Old Trapped in a Teenager’s Body Patrick Burleigh 2019

Comments

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  • O Fleece, foaming in the neck!

    O curls! O scent of laziness!

    Ecstasy! This evening, to people the dark corners

    Of memories that are sleeping in these locks,

    I would wave them in the air like a handkerchief!

    - Charles Baudelaire, 'The Head of Hair'.

    November 21, 2008

  • Lock Me Up

    This is a poem about terror.

    This is a poem about terrorists and terrorism and acts of terror and all the other keywords that press ASIO's buttons.

    This is a poem that the pot-bellied Customs officer will find in my notebook and it will cause him to strategically refrain from screwing up his nose while his heart races although when he shows it to his supervisor his eyebrows will writhe like naked caterpillars on Valentine's Day.

    This is a poem about violence.

    This is a poem about home-made bombs. I once tried strapping this poem to my chest. I exploded with sweat in a crowded coffee shop when the waiter asked if I liked orange Jews. I ordered apple.

    This is a poem about climate scandal.

    This is a poem about manipulation of manipulation of data.

    This is a poem that will never replace the planet we turn to a wasteland of oil company suits and dodgers.

    This is a poem about racism.

    This is not a poem by a white cunt about black cunts.

    This is about fascism. Fascism does not only exist in the dictators of lore: Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Pot. Fascism is security cameras in your email spying on what you downloaded to your hand-held conscience. Fascism is in poems. Cunt.

    This is a poem about jihad, brothers.

    This is a poem about struggle, brothers.

    Jihad, brothers, is like when you buy a fridge and attempt to get it up to your second-storey flat. Alone. In the rain. With a bad ankle.

    This poem says Allahu Akbar but it might have been a paid advertisement, brothers.

    This is a poem about fear.

    This poem is a way to demonstrate how our insecurities are being played against us. In the name of security.

    This poem if detected by a full-body scanner may resemble a Nigerian holding a bomb plot made of incompetence pointed at an AK-47 set to hysteria.

    These words are triggers and I'm shooting while I still can.

    This is a poem that will lock me up.

    This is the name of freedom. This is the name of democracy. This poem can and will be shackled like a dog and water-boarded.

    This poem is all I have left.

    February 26, 2010

  • *searches for key*

    February 26, 2010

  • Lock! An explanation of surprise; as, what! hey-day! --old provincial term and usage from Exmoor England. Grose's A Provincial Glossary, 1787.

    May 7, 2011

  • Hey-day!

    May 7, 2011