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PlainSpell

choking

/ˈt͡ʃoʊkɪŋ/noun, verb

choking is a noun meaning “The process in which a person's airway becomes blocked, resulting in asphyxia in cases that are not treated promptly” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-H-O-K-I-N-G and has 2 syllables, and it appears 3.8 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of choking is chokings.

What does choking mean?

noun

  1. 1

    The process in which a person's airway becomes blocked, resulting in asphyxia in cases that are not treated promptly.

  2. 2

    The act of coughing when a person finds it difficult to breathe.

  3. 3

    The act of trying to kill a person by strangulation.

  4. 4

    The result of something being choked.

verb

  1. 1

    present participle and gerund of choke (a form of choke)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce choking?

  • UK /ˈtʃəʊkɪŋ/
  • US /ˈt͡ʃoʊkɪŋ/

Choking has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-choking.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of choking

  • chokings plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is choking?

Choking appears 3.8 times per million words in written English, the 13,321st most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Choking in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
GermanErsticken, Erstickung (obstruction of the flow of air into the lungs), Röcheln, Würgen (act of coughing when a person finds it…), Strangulation (act of strangulation by hands or means, except…)
Spanishahogo (obstruction of the flow of air into the lungs)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does choking come from?

By surface analysis, choke + -ing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).