Meanings
-
1
verb
To stop something or someone from moving or making progress.
A fallen tree blocked the road for hours.
-
2
verb
To prevent something from happening.
The committee blocked the new plan at the last minute.
-
3
noun
A solid piece of hard material with flat sides.
The children built a tower out of wooden blocks.
-
4
noun
A large building divided into separate flats or rooms.
They live in a block of flats near the station.
-
5
noun
A group of related things treated as one unit.
I reserved a large block of seats for the school trip.
Thesaurus
Common collocations
Etymology
From Middle English blok (“log, stump, solid piece”), from Old French bloc (“log, block”), from Middle Dutch blok (“treetrunk”), from Old Dutch *blok (“log”), from Proto-West Germanic *blokk, from Proto-Germanic *blukką (“beam, log”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰelǵ- (“thick plank, beam, pile, prop”). Cognate with Old Frisian blok, Old Saxon blok, Old High German bloh, bloc (“block”), Old English bolca (“gangway of a ship, plank”), Old Norse bǫlkr (“divider, partition”). More at balk. See also bloc, bulk.