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Ahoy, mateys! Though it is now more often used by landlubbers, chockablock has a nautical history. On board a sailing vessel, chock can refer to a wedge or block that is pressed up against an object to keep it from moving (on land, wheel chocks prevent vehicles from rolling), while a block and tackle system combines pulleys, often in cases called "blocks," and rope or cable to provide mechanical advantage for hoisting and hauling. Using a block and tackle to hoist a sail on a traditional sailing ship, there’s a point when the rope or cable is pulled as far as it will go—the blocks at that point are tight together and said to be "chockablock"; they can no longer move, as if they are being checked by a chock. When non-nautical types associated the chock of chockablock with chock-full, from the Middle English adjective chokkefull, meaning "full to the limit" (likely a figurative use of "full to choking"), they gave chockablock the additional meaning "filled up." Chockablock can also be an adverb meaning "as close or as completely as possible," as in "dorms full of students living chockablock" or the seemingly redundant "chockablock full."
Examples of chockablock in a Sentence
David Sims, The Atlantic, 11 Apr. 2025
This was the chockablock 400-level section of the collection: the section for the Nigo-ologists and their Pharrell-ospher classmates.
—Jacob Gallagher, New York Times, 22 Jan. 2025
The idiosyncratic duplex penthouse is chockablock with treasures by a pantheon of 20th-century design titans on the order of Mario Bellini, Osvaldo Borsani, Angelo Mangiarotti, Gae Aulenti, Gio Ponti, Afra and Tobia Scarpa, Joe Colombo, Tito Agnoli, and others.
—Mayer Rus, Architectural Digest, 21 Jan. 2025
That is chockablock with antioxidants, thanks to grape seeds culled from Huynh’s family’s vineyard near Bordeaux, called Château Toulouse-Lautrec.
—Jennifer Weil, WWD, 19 Nov. 2024
Commercial Street is chockablock with shops, art galleries, restaurants, bars and prime people-watching.
—Brett Sokol, New York Times, 15 Aug. 2024
The archives are chockablock with certain-sounding predictions — frequently with an ideological subtext — that proved simply wrong.
—Neil Irwin, Axios, 24 July 2024
The dueling titans are building foundations in Hollywood that could be transformative not only for their many brands—which are chockablock with unplumbed archives—but also for the entertainment business, which knows how to tell a compelling tale.
—Christina Binkley, Robb Report, 27 Apr. 2024
The official Taylor Swift online store is chockablock with earrings, hoodies, vinyl and other merchandise promoting the star's latest record-breaking album, The Tortured Poets Department.
—Chloe Veltman, NPR, 26 Apr. 2024
Cite this Entry
“Chockablock.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chockablock. Accessed 21 May. 2025.
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