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Choke   /tʃoʊk/   Listen
Choke

verb
(past & past part. choked; pres. part. choking)
1.
Breathe with great difficulty, as when experiencing a strong emotion.
2.
Be too tight; rub or press.  Synonyms: fret, gag.
3.
Wring the neck of.  Synonym: scrag.
4.
Constrict (someone's) throat and keep from breathing.  Synonym: strangle.
5.
Struggle for breath; have insufficient oxygen intake.  Synonyms: gag, strangle, suffocate.
6.
Fail to perform adequately due to tension or agitation.
7.
Check or slow down the action or effect of.
8.
Become or cause to become obstructed.  Synonyms: back up, choke off, clog, clog up, congest, foul.  "The water pipe is backed up"
9.
Impair the respiration of or obstruct the air passage of.  Synonyms: asphyxiate, stifle, suffocate.
10.
Become stultified, suppressed, or stifled.  Synonym: suffocate.
11.
Suppress the development, creativity, or imagination of.  Synonym: suffocate.
12.
Pass from physical life and lose all bodily attributes and functions necessary to sustain life.  Synonyms: buy the farm, cash in one's chips, conk, croak, decease, die, drop dead, exit, expire, give-up the ghost, go, kick the bucket, pass, pass away, perish, pop off, snuff it.  "The children perished in the fire" , "The patient went peacefully" , "The old guy kicked the bucket at the age of 102"
13.
Reduce the air supply.  Synonym: throttle.
14.
Cause to retch or choke.  Synonym: gag.



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"Choke" Quotes from Famous Books



... cerises. Three kinds may here be included, the wild red cherry, Prunus Pennsylvanica, the choke cherry. Prunus Virginiana, and the wild ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain

... with which Grannie Thornton was conveying a piece of the trout to her mouth dropped from her hand. The last piece she had eaten seemed to choke her. Then she tottered to her feet with a wrench that made ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith

... which Uncle Zebedee had tried to choke at its birth now came out shrill, long and expressive, and Adam, jumping up, said, "Come, come, Eve: we've had enough of this. Surely there isn't any need to take such idle talk as serious matter. If you and me hadn't seen some good ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... he stood there alone in the cabin, he muttered something to himself. The desire possessed him to cry out aloud that Tavish had cheated him. A strange kind of rage burned within him and he turned toward the door, with clenched hands, as if about to rush out and choke from the dead man's throat what he wanted to know, and force his glazed and staring eyes to look for just one instant on the face of the girl in the picture. In another moment his brain had cleared itself of that insane fire. After ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood

... first opening months, And let the clods lie bare till baked to dust By the ripe suns of summer; but if the earth Less fruitful just ere Arcturus rise With shallower trench uptilt it- 'twill suffice; There, lest weeds choke the crop's luxuriance, here, Lest the scant moisture fail the barren sand. Then thou shalt suffer in alternate years The new-reaped fields to rest, and on the plain A crust of sloth to harden; or, when stars Are changed in heaven, there sow the golden grain Where erst, luxuriant with its quivering ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... but his timidity and a strange little choke in his throat, the sudden fright which had seized upon him, were not caused by embarrassment. He had no thought that she was one he had known but could not, for the moment, recall; there was nothing of the awkwardness of that; no, he was overpowered by ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... face as he swallowed the sour dose. Then he began to cough and splutter and choke ...
— The Graymouse Family • Nellie M. Leonard

... leaving you some marshmallows," he said. "I hope if you offer Willis one, it'll choke him, or," as he opened the door, "maybe he'll break his leg or his neck on the way out," and he shut ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow

... chance is to hide herself from him. The law cannot deal with wrongs like hers, because they are as light as air apparently, though they are as all-pervading as air is, and as poisonous as air can be. They are like choke-damp, only not quite fatal. He is as crafty and cunning as a serpent. He could prove himself the kindest, most considerate of husbands, and Olivia next thing to an idiot. Oh, it is ridiculous to think of pitting a girl like ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton

... say 'Ah' again, I hope you choke," said Billy violently to himself. Aloud he continued, "I wired to the Khedivial and to all the other hotels—there are just a few—and she isn't registered there, and the ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... only squeeze Alice tightly and choke as the aerial objects parted company and the blue gap between them widened. Instantly, avid to retrieve his mistake, the captain swung his craft in a wild careen around and a spiral upward. But he tried to do too many things at a time—make too much altitude and headway both at once. The blimp ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby

... it; I love all that was ever connected with it; and to all those who are in sympathy with my crude efforts to set forth what little I know, to each and every boy who feels a choke in his throat when he reads the closing lines of "In Memory," I say, I have a choke in my throat too, and I am silently clutching your hand, for that red boy has crossed the Big Divide and gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds and the ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... Dims the still watchfires of the waiting soul. O, tender-visaged Pity, stoop from heaven, And from the much-loved bosom of the past Draw back the nestling hand of Memory, Though it be quivering and pale with pain; And with the dead dust of departed Hope Choke up and wither into barrenness The sweetest fountain of the human heart, And stay its channels everlastingly From the endeavor of the loftier soul. Nay, 'twere a task outbalancing thy power, Nor can the almost-omnipotence ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... ease and suspicious, was stealing glances this way and that, his one eye on the settle that screened the entrance, the other on the staircase door that led to the upper floor. On a sudden she rose as if she must speak or choke. "Mr. Eubank," she cried, "you are here to hunt down Mr. Fayle! You think that he is in my room! My room! I read it in your ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman

... very much third best the poor stranger came off under the hospitable roof of the Dei Franchis. Even now the supper is a brief one, but justice is done to it, and to the weary traveller. Never was such an unhappy tourist! He comes to a house in the wilds of Corsica; he is choke-full of Parisian gossip, he has a lot to say of course, but he never gets a chance, as Fabien tells him family stories one after the other, as if he hadn't had such an opportunity or so good a listener for ever so long. Then, when on the entrance of his mother Fabien breaks off in the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various

... neighbours' chimneys smoke, And Christmas blocks are burning; Their ovens they with baked meats choke, And ...
— Old English Sports • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... the mine is badly ventilated. Many of the best galleries are filled with choke-damp, and must be ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston

... Darius to erect his trophy on the plains of Marathon! Then turn and tell the proud Persian that the hand which wrought those fair proportions, lies cold and powerless, by vote of the Athenian people. No—ye could not say it: your hearts would choke your voices. Ye could not tell the barbarian that Athens thus destroyed one of the most gifted of ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child

... why not? It makes Camille choke with laughter. Come this evening; I will bring Babet, and she will amuse you as she maintains ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... catching her round the shoulders: swinging her right round him and away from Randall: and gripping her throat with the other hand]. Ariadne, if you attempt to start on me, I'll choke you: do you hear? The cat-and-mouse game with the other sex is a good game; but I can play your head off at it. [He throws her, not at all gently, into the big chair, and proceeds, less fiercely but firmly]. It is true that ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... opened and someone entered, there came no jingle of tea things. She did not turn her head. It was as though she could not. She was as one turned to stone. She thought that the wild throbbing of her heart would choke her. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... jump on him and choke the dog's life out of him!" muttered Tom, but his friends laid restraining ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall

... to speak, began to choke. She looked piteously from her brother to her sister, struggling in vain to articulate. It was too cruel that she should be bereft of speech at this ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... by the blast, were rushing towards us like a thing alive. Above us swept a great pall of smoke in which floated flakes of fire, so thick that it hid the sky, though fortunately the wind did not suffer it to sink and choke us. The sounds also were almost inconceivable, for to the crackling roar of the conflagration as it devoured hut after hut, were added the coarse, yelling voices of the half-bred Arabs, as in mingled rage and terror they tore at the gateway or each other, and the reports ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... brave resolutions in good faith, it was hard to keep them. School was awful. The very sight of Gladys's empty seat made Midge choke ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells

... marmalade was a revelation to this inexperienced student who had never known what it was to be without at least three meals a day. He watched in spite of himself, wondering why the fellow did not choke ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... last That which Rome hath most precious within it be cast." The Romans threw in it their corn and their stuff, But the gulf yawn'd as wide. Rome seem'd likely enough To be ruin'd ere this rent in her heart she could choke. Then Curtius, revering the oracle, spoke: "O Quirites! to this Heaven's question is come: What to Rome is most precious? The manhood of Rome." He plunged, and the gulf closed. The tale is not new; But the moral applies many ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... Stepka happened to look toward his coat, which he had laid down on the table, with the burning wood still in it, and started as if he had been stung. It was choke-full of gold—good, solid ducats[D] as ever were coined, more than he could have counted in a whole hour. Then he knew that his strange companions were no charcoal-burners, but God's own angels sent to help him in his need; and he kneeled down and gave thanks ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, May, 1878, No. 7. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various

... wide earth, lies useless; all the grain "Dies in the earliest shoots: now scorching rays; "Now floods of rain destroy it: noxious stars "Now harm; now blighting winds: and hungry birds "The scatter'd seed devour: the darnel springs, "The thistle, and the knot-grass thick, which choke "The sprouting wheat, and make ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... turn gazed on him with surprise, having never, he thought, beheld such a gaunt expression of hunger in the act of eating. 'Friend,' he said, after watching him for some minutes, 'if thou gorgest thyself in this fashion, thou wilt assuredly choke. Wilt thou not take a draught out of my cup to help ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... fire, as a means of both extending the open grounds, and making the acquisition of a yet more productive soil. After a few harvests had exhausted the first rank fertility of this virgin mould, or when weeds and briers and the sprouting roots of the trees had begun to choke the crops of the half-subdued soil, the ground would be abandoned for new fields won from the forest by the same means, and the deserted plain or hillock would soon clothe itself anew with shrubs and trees, to be again subjected to the same destructive ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... told us of his nevvy, Dick, and I got to thinkin' of his bein' just the age of our Richard, I declare it seemed like something got in my throat and I'd choke. Do you reckon he'll ever find him?" said Polly, as she busied herself with preparations for ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... Florence spareth thy vile neck the yoke, Would that the very isles would rise, and choke Thy river, and drown every soul within Thy loathsome walls. What if this Ugolin Did play the traitor, and give up (for so The rumour runs) thy castles to the foe, Thou hadst no right to put to rack like this His children. Childhood innocency is. But ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt

... she must go back again to that dreadful workhouse, with its harsh matron and dreadful companions, its misery, discomfort, and loneliness. She could not help shuddering and gulping back the sorrowful sobs that seemed to choke her. She ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... start in Saturday. And, Jack, he said this morning that much as he hated to leave town, there wasn't any other way out; so we're going the day after tomorrow. I knew I'd have to tell you, but, say, every time I tried to speak it seemed like I'd choke." ...
— Jack Winters' Baseball Team - Or, The Rivals of the Diamond • Mark Overton

... just what I was saying to Govind after the performance, and he laughed as though he would choke himself to death," interposed Lord Tremlyn, laughing rather earnestly himself. "There was not a single female on the stage; for the custom of the theatre here does not permit women to appear, any more than it did in ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic

... its way to another person's intelligence. 'How can my address have become known?' he said at length, audibly. 'Well, it is a blessing I have been circumspect and honourable, in relation to that—yes, I will say it, for once, even if the words choke me, that darling of mine, Cytherea, never to be my own, never. I suppose all will come out now. All!' The great sadness of his utterance proved that no mean force had been exercised upon himself to sustain the circumspection he had ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... my mother before, and almost broke down with the effort. Words seemed to choke me, and her saddening eyes filled me ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... exhaustion, for she had been too sick at heart to touch the food brought to her at their previous halting-place, gazing abstractedly upon the fire. Her father, before their departure, made her swallow some morsels of sea-biscuit, though each seemed to choke her; and then, wrapped in a thick boat-cloak, she was placed in a small well-built cutter; and as the sea-winds whistled round her, the present cold and the past fatigues lulled her miserable heart into the arms of the ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... rich. Luke 6:24: "But woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation." He showed the danger of riches in the parable of the sower. Matt. 13:22: "He also that received seed among thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott

... shunned all those inquisitive eyes. Everybody used to ask him about his wife when he went there, and he confessed to the maid with a sigh that he could no longer boast about her, for when he did he felt as if he were going to choke, and he could not utter a ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... thought any language of mine could do justice to her character, I would try to describe my mother. Were I to speak of her, my voice would choke at the mention of her name. As I write, a mist gathers over my eyes. Grief for the loss of such a being is immortal, as the love of which it ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... stop bucking long enough to slap Lovin Child in the face with the soft side of the rabbit fur, and Lovin Child would squint his eyes and wrinkle his nose and laugh until he seemed likely to choke. Then Bud would cry, "Ride 'im, Boy! Ride 'im an' scratch 'im. Go get 'im, cowboy—he's your meat!" and would bounce Lovin Child ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... and feels his brow grow black with rage. He would have liked to take him and choke the life ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... the winding mule-tracks, it is a perfect miniature of a primitive seafaring town; the saltest, roughest, most piratical little place that ever was seen. Great rusty iron rings and mooring-chains, capstans, and fragments of old masts and spars, choke up the way; hardy rough-weather boats, and seamen's clothing, flutter in the little harbour or are drawn out on the sunny stones to dry; on the parapet of the rude pier, a few amphibious-looking fellows lie asleep, with their legs dangling over the wall, as though ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... tended with care, like children, to grow up to maturity, but weeds grow of themselves and multiply without any attention, choking up those flowers that require it; and lies are propagated as easily as weeds, and choke up the blossoms of truth in the same manner. But the evils and misrepresentations of false criticism, though great and many, ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry

... example"? He can turn round upon you and say, "Why make an 'example' of me, a merely ill-situated, pitiable man? Have you no more respect for misfortune? Misfortune, I have been told, is sacred. And yet you hang me, now I am fallen into your hands; choke the life out of me, for an example! Again I ask, Why make an example of me, for your own convenience alone?"—All "revenge" being out of the question, it seems to me the caitiff is unanswerable; and he and the philanthropic platforms have the logic ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... mouse. Nobody saw her. She did not, indeed, know what to do. She dared not remain standing all alone, so she crept to the place where her sister's chair was, and stood a little behind its high back. Her heart beat within her breast till it was like to choke her. ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... I could use some exercise. That lunch looks big enough to choke a horse and I'd like to ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... quite ashamed of you, making such a noise. Don't choke, there's more sugar in the basin. Wipe your eyes, and see if you can possibly ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... about fifteen; a dirty, careless dog, who, with the best intentions, is always in trouble by sins of omission or commission. The latter through inadvertence, and often through excess of zeal. About three times a day, sometimes oftener, I get angry enough to choke him, but his honesty and good-nature prevail. In my will, made about the 10th of July, I recommend him to you ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... two are engaged, but"—she straightened up in order to meet his eyes—"she's treating you abominably and shamelessly. Ordinarily, I would hold my peace, I've held it hitherto, but I can no longer. Why, I choke sometimes! Going constantly with Gretzinger, who's so despicable that he tries to use her as a tool to reach and corrupt you, or Charlie Menocal, who's your out-and-out enemy, it's too much for me, Lee. And uncle and aunt are furious with me for staying. She listen to me? Ruth ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd

... this great, rich world,' I exclaimed (to myself, not to the Gypsy), 'choke-full of harvest, bursting with grain, while famishing on the hills for a mouthful ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... admire it," the boy answered grumpily. "The air down here always seems to choke me, and it is twice as much trouble to drive the boat through this narrow, weedy channel as it is to go ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant

... earthquake which seemed to come from vast depths beneath his feet. Profoundly awed, but master of his spirit, he stood leaning upon his spear in the thick dark till the last of that strange humming note had died away. Then, through a silence so thick it seemed to choke him, he called aloud: ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... a man-cook and two kitchen-maids I couldn't got it done for twice the money, and no injured young woman a glaring at you and grudging you and acknowledging your patronage by wishing that your food might choke you, but so civil and so hot and attentive and every way comfortable except Jemmy pouring wine down his throat by tumblers-full and me expecting to see ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy • Charles Dickens

... important difference. In the fourth act of the earlier play a Heilbronn Councillor says to Goetz: 'We owe no faith to a robber.' Whereat Goetz exclaims: 'If you did not wear the emperor's emblem, which I honor in the vilest counterfeit, you should take back that word or choke upon it. Mine is an honorable feud.' That is, the knight of the sixteenth century repudiates the name in which Karl Moor glories. Says Schiller's Pater in the second act: 'And you, pretty captain! Duke of cutpurses! King of scoundrels! Great Mogul ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... plant is the Serenade vine (Mandolina Nightbawlia),—a climber encouraged by some, but regarded by others as a nuisance. Unlike other vines, it cannot stand wet weather. A sudden rain, the spray of a hose, even a pitcher of water, will choke ...
— Cupid's Almanac and Guide to Hearticulture for This Year and Next • John Cecil Clay

... something, but the words seemed to choke in his throat and he turned away, leaving ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard

... die—I choke," said Father d'Aigrigny, whose features were already changing with the approach ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... a Christian duty, and the condition of participation in the Paschal Lamb, is based upon that thought to which I have already referred, of the diabolical power of infection which Evil possesses. Either you must cast it out, or it will choke the better thing in you. It spreads and grows, and propagates itself, and works underground through and through the whole mass. A water-weed got into some of our canals years ago, and it has all but choked some of them. The slime on a pond spreads its green mantle over the whole ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... of the irrevocable gripped her. Tied for ever to a brute whom she despised and hated, sacrificed to no purpose; whilst here, alive and well, stood the man to whom in ardent youth she had plighted her undisciplined heart. The thought maddened her. And as she struggled to choke back this overwhelming rush of feeling, her husband's unwelcome entrance broke the tension of a scene the strain ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang

... Aileen had descended upon her whirlwind, animal fashion, striking, scratching, choking, tearing her visitor's hat from her head, ripping the laces from her neck, beating her in the face, and clutching violently at her hair and throat to choke and mar her beauty if she could. For the moment she was ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... heard about these cherries," he announced. "And he says he's coming over here as soon as he can find time, for he is specially fond of all kinds of cherries, no matter whether they're red cherries or black cherries or choke cherries." ...
— The Tale of Rusty Wren • Arthur Scott Bailey

... damaging relations with West European partners. The biggest danger is that excessive wage settlements and heavy federal borrowing could fuel inflation and prompt the German Central Bank, the Bundesbank, to keep a tight monetary policy to choke off a wage-price spiral. Meanwhile, the FRG has been providing billions of dollars to help the former Soviet republics and the reformist economies of Eastern Europe. GDP: purchasing power equivalent - Federal Republic of Germany: $1,331.4 billion, per capita $16,700; real ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... backward so suddenly that she trod upon the foot of Lottie, who again sent forth an outcry, which Anna Jeffrey managed to choke down. "Is this bedlam, or what?" And stepping out upon the piazza, she looked to see if the blundering driver had made a mistake. But no; it was the same old gray stone house she had left some months before; and again pressing boldly forward, ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes

... was a fool to choke him off like that. If I'd had any sense I should have told him straight away of the treasure and taken him into Co. I've no doubt he'd have come into Co. A child, with a few hours to think it over, could have seen the connection between my diving-dress ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells

... to swallowing, we must finish doing so,—that is to say, our control over the operation ceases. Also, a still smaller experience seems necessary for the acquisition of the power to swallow than appeared necessary in the case of eating; and if we get into a difficulty we choke, and are more at a loss how to become introspective than we are about eating ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... Sundays with the burghers of Hamburg smoking their pipes, the women and children feasting in the alcoves of box and yew, and it becomes a nature of its own. On Wednesday, four o'clock, we left the vessel, and passing with trouble through the huge masses of shipping that seemed to choke the wide Elbe from Altona upward, we were at length landed ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... tea. Perhaps the little one, the idol of the household, whose chirruping voice was wont to set us all laughing with droll remarks, expressed in baby dialect. How we miss the little high-chair that was always drawn up 'close by papa!' How our eyes will swim and our hearts swell up and choke us when we see it pushed back into the corner, now silent and vacant! Hast thou not wept thus? Be grateful. Thou hast been spared one of ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... it is nothing but absurdity! Do I not understand it? I understand everything, I see everything, I feel everything! Only my tongue is dumb. What aim is there in business? Money? I have plenty of it! I could choke you to death with it, cover you with it. All this business is nothing but fraud. I meet business people—well, and what about them? Their greediness is immense, and yet they purposely whirl about in business that they might not see themselves. They hide themselves, the devils. ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... you I'm going to get you out. I'm going back there, and get things in action, and I'm going to stay by them. I've got a good idea of these properties—and you hear me, now—I'll finish with a bank-roll that'll choke Red Bank Canon." ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... said. 'A man would ha' taken the knife. Did you think aw was goin' to gie my neck to the noose just to put your knife to proper use? But don't stir till aw gie you the word, or aw'll choke the breath o' life out ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Vad. But do not indulge in the besetting sin of your sex, or, like the mother of the race, you may find your apple choke you ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black

... Whitehall came before her out of the long past, with his lips tightening, and his words: "We have to do very hard things, Mrs. Gerhardt." Why had they to do them? Her man had never done no harm to no one! A flood, bitter as sea water, surged in her, and seemed to choke her very being. Those gentlemen in the papers—why should they go on like that? Had they no hearts, no eyes to see the misery they brought to humble folk? "I wish them nothing worse than what they've brought to him and me," she thought wildly: ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy

... greeting "Rejoice!" sounded rather like "May you choke!" as he flung aside his upper garment; and to the old man's answer and anxious exclamation: "How badly you look, Philip!" he answered crossly: "Like a man who deserves a kick rather than a welcome; a booby who has submitted to have his nose ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... stir round and stop it. That's the only use in remembering things. Standing alone, Hallam and his crowd will squeeze you out one by one; standing fast together for what is your own, you're fit to choke off anybody, and what I've called you here for is to see whether we can't fix up a ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss

... only to fear choke or fire-damp, but sometimes water. A mine has, therefore, to be drained. A well or tank is dug in the lowest level, into which all the springs are made to run. A pump is sunk down to it through a shaft with a steam engine above, by which all the ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... Griffith's Island and Cape Bunny, where a narrowing strait, and the cross-tide of the channel towards the American coast, tie up the broad floes formed in the great water-space west of that point; and lastly, a similar choke takes place, apparently off the S.W. ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn

... the best reason—there was no other way. We had gone too far to turn back, and, as our proverb says, "It is idle to swallow the cow and choke on the tail." ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan

... raise a rage that mote * Make spittle choke me, sticking in my throat) His pardoner, and pardon his offense, * Fearing lest I should live a ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton

... should escape sprang to his tongue. "He died in a fit." He almost believed it as it murmured itself from his lips. There was no mark, no bruise, nothing to show that he had touched the boy. Suddenly he felt the lie choke him. He pulled down the window to let in the fresh air, and this pure breath of heaven blew into his darkened spirit and lifted there a little the vapors which were thickening in it. The horror of having to tell that lie, even if he should escape by it, all his life long, till he was a gray old man, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells

... stupidity. A few brave souls swagger through their prime with some bravado, knowing the final cost, but willing to pay it by installments through the dribbling years which follow; but the usury of time makes that folly. The wise choke such gypsy impulses—admit the mortgage of the Present to the Future—and surrender the brisk liberty of youth to the limping freedom of old age. But Donaldson was too thoughtful a man to belong to either the first or second class and yet ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... find that a sudden order to go to sea can tear you away from your family, and expose you to danger and to temptations, which can easily—we know how easily—choke the good seed, I cannot think of entrusting my child, ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... choke in her voice as she said this, and a little mist in her eyes as she looked for the last time at the familiar ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells

... dinner—just like soldiers, in single file, with a guard close beside them, that they should not run away. I suppose they were very glad to eat what was laid on those wooden plates, but you or I would have gone hungry a long while first. In fact, I think, Harry, that PRISON food would choke me any how, though it were roast turkey or plum pudding. I'm quite sure my gypsey throat would refuse ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... them during several years, had almost daily suffered from prolonged choking-fits, during which the vessels of the eye are distended and tears copiously secreted, then it is probable, such is the force of associated habit, that during after life the mere thought of a choke, without any distress of mind, would have sufficed to bring ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... the Greeks. But it illustrates, nevertheless, the general bent of their views of art, that tendency to the identification of the beautiful and the good, which, while it was never pushed so far as to choke art with didactics—for Plato himself, even against his own will, is a poet—yet served to create a standard of taste which was ethical as much as aesthetic, and made the judgment of beauty also a ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... already signs of an internecine fight with the devil-grass, which has intrenched itself in a considerable portion of my garden-patch. It contests the ground inch by inch; and digging it out is very much such labor as eating a piece of choke-cherry pie with the stones all in. It is work, too, that I know by experience I shall have to do alone. Every man must eradicate his own devil-grass. The neighbors who have leisure to help you in grape-picking time are all busy when devil-grass is most aggressive. My neighbors' visits are well ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... do it again," he said at last, with solemn earnestness. "I never will, not if I starve and freeze and choke to death. I'll let old rags that blow to me ...
— Three People • Pansy

... Spangled Banner," and she stepped out a little from the crowd to face the young men as the orchestra sounded the first chord. She sang in a full, clear voice, but when the volunteers saw that, as she sang, the tears were streaming down her cheeks in spite of the brave voice, they began to choke with the others. If Miss Betty found them worth weeping for, they could afford to cry a little for themselves. Yet they joined the chorus nobly, and raised the roof with the ringing song, sending the flamboyant, proud old ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... empty all water from tin cans, old barrels, etc; cover with wire all cisterns and water barrels; fill in all puddles and drain off marshes; put oil on all pools and streams to choke the wrigglers; cut down grass ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... absolutely, not all men, only those that see they are outdone by their enemies in industry, in goodness, in magnanimity, in humanity, in kindnesses; these, as Demosthenes says, "stop the tongue, block up the mouth, choke people, and make ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... course we are, in a way, responsible for our children's deeds, and there's a possibility that some of those letters could make trouble for us. But I think it's all right now. The next thing is to choke off the children before they go any further. What do you suppose possessed them to ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells

... passenger told how, when the Meuse is frozen, the currents, coming unexpectedly from warmer regions, strike the ice that covers the river, break it, upheave enormous blocks with a terrific crash, and hurl them against the dykes, piling them in immense heaps which choke the course of the river and make it overflow. Then begins a strange battle. The Dutch answer the threats of the Meuse with cannonade. The artillery is called out, volleys of grape-shot break the towers and barricades of ice which oppose the current, into a storm of splinters ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... yo' pardon, 'deed Ah do, Fo' all the trouble Ah've caused yo', And hopes that Ah may sho'ly choke If it was meant fo' more'n a joke. So please fo'give ol' Uncle Bill And show yo' friendship for him still By taking this as an invite To join with me next Monday night Aroun' mah famous hollow tree, And help me to full ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Mocker • Thornton W. Burgess

... will remember that it is the leaf which makes the food. And if there is no food then there will be none to store away in the root for new root formation. Some farmers smother roots. This is done by planting such crops as hemp, clover or cowpeas. These crops choke out the weeds. They cover the ground very completely, and so the weeds have less ...
— The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. • Ellen Eddy Shaw

... the inhabitants of which are in a constant state of warfare with the other tribes, in which they are sometimes joined by the people of Moo-doo When-u-a, Tettua Whoo-doo, and Wangaroa; but these tribes are oftener united with those of Choke-han-ga, Teer-a-witte, and Ho-do-doe against T'Souduckey (the bounds of which district Governor King inclines to think is from about Captain Cook's Mount Egmont, to Cape Runaway). They are not, however, without long intervals of peace, at which times they visit, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... that's the way to choke a gibing spirit, Whose influence is begot of that loose grace, Which shallow laughing hearers giue to fooles: A iests prosperitie, lies in the eare Of him that heares it, neuer in the tongue Of him that makes ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... Paula threw their arms round one another and cried; Magdalen, with a choke in her voice, struggled to ask Mr. Flight to lead them in a few words of thanksgiving; and as soon as these were over, Thekla expressed her hopes that they had been cast on a desert island and would bring ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... Tanner, the prophet Elijah, and other adventurous souls too numerous to mention, have abundantly shown us that a man can do without food altogether for forty days at a stretch, while he can't do without oxygen for a single minute. Cut off his supply of that life-supporting gas, choke him, or suffocate him, or place him in an atmosphere of pure carbonic acid, or hold his head in a bucket of water, and he dies at once. Yet, except in mines or submarine tunnels, nobody ever takes into account practically this most important factor in human and ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... shall grow softer in each maiden's eyes As Juliet leans her cheek upon her hand, And prattles to the night. Anon, a reverend form, With tattered robe and forehead bare, That challenge all the torments of the air, Goes by! And the pent feelings choke in one long sigh, While, as the mimic thunder rolls, you hear The noble wreck of Lear Reproach like things of life the ancient skies, And commune with the storm! Lo! next a dim and silent chamber where, Wrapt in glad dreams in which, ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... claws and doubled his fist to strike, as a blow from Stuart caught him in the neck and laid him on the pavement. The young lawyer sprang on the prostrate figure with fury. It was the joyous work of a minute to beat and choke him into insensibility. He rose and gave the black form a parting kick that rolled him into the gutter, turned to the crouching ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... by the throat and choke me. And then in an instant Olivier's arms were round me, Pelletan had seized me by the right hand, Mortier by the left, some were patting me on the shoulder, some were clapping me on the back, on every side smiling faces were looking into mine; and so it was that I knew that ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle

... with emotion which he can hardly suppress, Jack's voice almost seems to choke him. "Let me speak ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace

... Glory's letter. It fell on him like a blast out of a cloud in the black northeast, and cut him to the heart's core. He read it again, and being alone he burst into laughter. He took it up a third time, and when he had finished there was something at his throat that seemed to choke him. His first impulse was fury. He wanted to rush off to Glory and insult her, to ask her if she was mad or believed him to be so. Because she was a coward herself, being slave-bound to the world and afraid to fight it face to face, did she wish to make a coward of him ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... rails and a stocking on each, and four small goosbry bushes, always covered with some bit of linning or other. The hall was a regular puddle: wet dabs of dishclouts flapped in your face; soapy smoking bits of flanning went nigh to choke you; and while you were looking up to prevent hanging yourself with the ropes which were strung across and about, slap came the hedge of a pail against your shins, till one was like to be drove mad with hagony. The great slattnly ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray

... was telling us there's two fellows waiting below to pull his heels down when he gets the drop and choke him properly and then they chop up the rope after and sell the bits for a few ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce

... tailor makes me wait a long time on a day like this, when I have so much business to attend to. I am furious. May the deuce fly away with the tailor! May the plague choke the tailor! May the ague shake that brute of a tailor! If I had him here now, that rascally tailor, that wretch of a ...
— The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere (Poquelin)

... meet our fate?" demanded Jack. "What are you thinking about, Tom, for I can see a look in your face that we ought to know? Have you an idea—is there yet a hope that we can get a grip on this danger, and choke it?" ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... put the halter on, and tied the end short to the fore-leg of the pony, so that it could not walk without keeping its head close to the ground—if it raised its head, it was obliged to lift up its leg. Then he put the lasso round its neck, to choke it if it was too unruly, and having done that, he cast loose the ropes which ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat

... rests at present," he ended bitterly. "I've taken away your livelihood; and dragged your name into this unsavoury mire; and there's no finality reached.... But I'll get this tangle straightened out somehow, if I have to choke Larssen to ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg

... out presents to the immature guests. On a great many occasions, the youngsters—in those early days they were waifs—either went sound asleep before he was half way through or became so restless and voracious that he couldn't keep his place in the book, what with watching to see that they didn't choke on the candy, break the windows or mirrors with their footballs, or put some one's ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... around the painted tower. Inside the gauze-lattice peaceful sleep flies, when, after dark, come wind and rain. Both new-born sorrows and long-standing griefs cannot from memory ever die! E'en jade-fine rice, and gold-like drinks they make hard to go down; they choke the throat. The lass has not the heart to desist gazing in the glass at her wan face. Nothing can from that knitted brow of hers those frowns dispel; For hard she finds it patient to abide till the clepsydra will have run its course. Alas! how fitly ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... a conservative is to let all the drains of thought choke up and keep all the soul's windows down,—to shut out the sun from the east and the wind from the west,—to let the rats run free in the cellar, and the moths feed their fill in the chambers, and the spiders weave their lace before the mirrors, till the soul's typhus is bred out of our ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... forms of carbureted water gas plant, in that the upper layer of the fuel itself forms the superheater, and that no second part of any kind is needed for the fixation of the hydrocarbons, an arrangement which reduces the apparatus to the simplest form, and leaves no part which can choke or get out of order, an advantage which will not be underrated by any one who has had experience of these plants. While, however, this enormous advantage is gained, there is also the drawback that the apparatus is not fitted for use with crude oils of heavy specific gravity, such as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... waited till it was over, standing stolidly by the tail of the car. She could have cried then because of the sheer beauty of the cure's act, even while she wondered whether perhaps the wafer on his tongue might not choke the dying man. ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair

... with a rope, but with common ordinary smoke; or he may be struck dead by lightning while exercising in the prison yards. When the morning is come on which the poor wretch is to be hanged, he may choke at his breakfast, or die from failure of the heart's action before the drop has fallen; and even though it has fallen, he cannot be quite certain that he is going to die, for he cannot know this ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler



Words linked to "Choke" :   yield, block, give out, become, jam, take a breath, neglect, hurt, change state, obturate, squeeze, exit, obstruct, circuit, famish, compact, fail, breathe, sicken, predecease, press, choking, contract, starve, fall, pip out, break, scrag, pass, fuel system, unclog, coil, valve, drown, bottle up, compress, constrict, kick the bucket, abort, electrical circuit, inhibit, be born, clog, stuff, buy it, suppress, succumb, dampen, gum up, enrich, crap up, silt up, occlude, turn, pass away, respire, go bad, break down, electric circuit, choke-full, suffer, suspire, impede, conk out, silt, close up, lug, give way



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