choke
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "choke", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "choke" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "choke" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
choke is aEnglishverb. It means: To be unable to breathe because of obstruction of the windpipe (for instance food or other objects that go down the wrong way, or fumes or particles in the air that cause the throat to constrict). Pronounced /t͡ʃəʊk/. Often confused with Coe and come.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | choke |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /t͡ʃəʊk/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #10,824 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for choke is 5 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /t͡ʃəʊk/. Corpus data places it at rank #10,824 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for choke, with forms such as "cchoke", "chhoke", and "chkoe". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "Coe", "come", "code", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English choken (also cheken), from earlier acheken, from Old English āċēocian (“to choke”), probably derived from Old English ċēoce, ċēace (“jaw, cheek”), see cheek. Cognate with Icelandic kok (“throat”), koka (“to gulp”). See also achoke. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is choke, spelled C-H-O-K-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To be unable to breathe because of obstruction of the windpipe (for instance food or other objects that go down the wrong way, or fumes or particles in the air that cause the throat to constrict).
- 2To prevent (someone) from breathing or talking by strangling or filling the windpipe.
- 3To obstruct (a passage, etc.) by filling it up or clogging it.
- 4To hinder or check, as growth, expansion, progress, etc.; to kill (a plant by robbing it of nutrients); to extinguish (fire by robbing it of oxygen).
- 5To perform badly at a crucial stage of a competition, especially when one appears to be clearly winning.
- 6To move one's fingers very close to the tip of a pencil, brush or other art tool.
- 7To hold the club or bat lower on the shaft in order to shorten one's swing.
- 8To be checked or stopped, as if by choking
- 9To check or stop (an utterance or voice) as if by choking.
- 10To have a feeling of strangulation in one's throat as a result of passion or strong emotion.
- 11To give (someone) a feeling of strangulation as a result of passion or strong emotion.
- 12To say (something) with one’s throat constricted (due to emotion, for example).
- 13To use the choke valve of (a vehicle) to adjust the air/fuel mixture in the engine.
- 14To reach a condition of maximum flowrate, due to the flow at the narrowest point of the duct becoming sonic (Ma = 1).
- 15To make or install a choke, as in a cartridge, or in the bore of the barrel of a shotgun.
Etymology
From Middle English choken (also cheken), from earlier acheken, from Old English āċēocian (“to choke”), probably derived from Old English ċēoce, ċēace (“jaw, cheek”), see cheek. Cognate with Icelandic kok (“throat”), koka (“to gulp”). See also achoke.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cchoke,chhoke,chkoe,choek,chokke,cohke,hcoke
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for choke
Misspelling Variants of "choke"
Frequency rank: #10,824 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: