block
nounUK /blɒk/ · US /blɑk/
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.
39 senses
- 1A substantial, often approximately cuboid, piece of any…
- 2A chopping block: a cuboid base for cutting or beheading.
- 3A wig block: a simplified head model upon which wigs are worn.
- 4A mould on which hats, bonnets, etc., are shaped.
- 5A piece of hard wood on which a stereotype or…
- 6A case or frame housing one or more sheaves (pulleys)…
- 7A section of split logs used as fuel.
- 8A set of sheets (of paper) joined together at one end…
- 9The perch on which a bird of prey is kept.
- 10In Conway's Game of Life, a still life consisting of…
- 11A physical area or extent of something, often…
- 12A joined group of four (or in some cases nine) postage…
- 13A discrete group of vines in a vineyard, often…
- 14A logical extent or region; a grouping or apportionment…
- 15A logical data storage unit containing one or more…
- 16A region of code in a program that acts as a single…
- 17A fixed-length group of bits making up part of a message.
- 18A portion of a macromolecule, comprising many units…
- 19A section of a railroad where the block system is used.
- 20A contiguous range of Unicode code points used to encode…
- 21A yeargroup at Eton College.
- 22A contiguous group of urban lots of property, typically…
- 23The distance from one street to another in a city or…
- 24A cuboid or approximately cuboid building.
- 25A cellblock.
- 26Something that prevents something from passing.
- 27Interference or obstruction of cognitive processes.
- 28Any point on the board where two or more men rest, and…
- 29An action to interfere with the movement of an opposing…
- 30A shot played by holding the bat vertically in the path…
- 31The position of a player or bat when guarding the wicket.
- 32A blockhole.
- 33The popping crease.
- 34A defensive play by one or more players meant to deflect…
- 35The portion of the movement where a gymnast pushes off the vault.
- 36A temporary or permanent ban that prevents access to an…
- 37The human head.
- 38Solitary confinement.
- 39A blockhead; a stupid person; a dolt.
A substantial, often approximately cuboid, piece of any substance.
- a block of ice; a block of stone
- She picked up the block and examined it.
A chopping block: a cuboid base for cutting or beheading.
- Anne Boleyn placed her head on the block and awaited her execution.
- You young porkers who are sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year.1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:
A wig block: a simplified head model upon which wigs are worn.
- Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade’s bill; using, however, my comrade’s money.1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 13”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
A mould on which hats, bonnets, etc., are shaped.
- He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
Media, Printing, Publishing Dated A piece of hard wood on which a stereotype or electrotype plate is mounted.
A case or frame housing one or more sheaves (pulleys), used with ropes to increase or redirect force, for example as part of lifting gear or a sailing ship's rigging. See also block and tackle.
A section of split logs used as fuel.
- She said, 'I hope I shall not be left to kill myself, but It would be no more sin to kill me, than to put a block on the fire.'1833, The Gospel Anchor, volume 2, page 371:
- "Aye," said the farmer putting another block on the fire as he spoke […]1803, Mary Tighe, Selena:
1 more example
- Dawn and Shorty would cut this tree into blocks, while Randy and Matt went back for more. Dawn and Shorty made a good team on the crosscut, so when another log arrived, the first was almost completely made into shake wood.2012, Ron Herrett, Shorty's Story:
A set of sheets (of paper) joined together at one end, forming a cuboid shape.
- a block of 100 tickets
Cellular automata, Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences In Conway's Game of Life, a still life consisting of four living cells arranged in a two-by-two square.
- But there are many queen bee configurations in which the debris is neutralized, including placement of a block or eater near the bee's turnaround point, or placing two queen bees in a line or at right angles in various positions and phases.1989 October 31, Scott Huddleston, “life: glider guns”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet):
- Perhaps the simplest puffer known is the following period 20 puffer based on the period 20 spaceship, which creates blocks.1997 November 30, David Bell, “Day & Night - An Interesting Variant of Life (part 5/5)”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet):
1 more example
- Blocks have a couple of unusual properties: they are cleanly destroyed by an incoming glider on any one of six adjacent paths, and none of the possible collisions include any output gliders, so you can't get chain reactions.2005 February 23, Dave Greene, “exist glider gun able of reconstruction in Life?”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet):
A physical area or extent of something, often rectangular or approximately rectangular.
- a block of text; a block of colour; a block of land
Hobbies, Lifestyle, Philately A joined group of four (or in some cases nine) postage stamps, forming a roughly square shape.
A discrete group of vines in a vineyard, often distinguished from others by variety, clone, canopy training method, irrigation infrastructure, or some combination thereof.
A logical extent or region; a grouping or apportionment of like things treated together as a unit.
- a block of data; a block of seven days; a block reservation
- The great game of golf offered an antidote to the inevitable dead space — blocks of difficult-to-use hours, pre- and postflight — that are one of business travel’s biggest drags.2007 September 4, John Berg, “Time on the Greens Beats Time at the Gate”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 10 Jan 2021:
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A logical data storage unit containing one or more physical sectors.
- After one disk is mapped, the next block starts at address 0 on the next disk.2003, Dilip M. Ranade, Shared Data Clusters, page 79:
- The difficulty of each puzzle would increase as the number of miners increased, which would keep production to one block of transactions roughly every 10 minutes. In addition, the size of each block bounty would halve every 210,000 blocks—first from 50 bitcoins to 25, then from 25 to 12.5, and so on. Around the year 2140, the currency would reach its preordained limit of 21 million bitcoins.2011 November 23, Benjamin Wallace, “The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin”, in Wired, San Francisco, Calif.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 02 Jan 2025:
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Programming, Sciences A region of code in a program that acts as a single unit, such as a function or loop.
- With a foreach block, you don't need to create an explicit counter variable.2006, Matthew MacDonald, Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional, page 49:
Computing, Cryptography, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A fixed-length group of bits making up part of a message.
Chemistry, Natural sciences, Physical sciences A portion of a macromolecule, comprising many units, that has at least one feature not present in adjacent portions.
Rail transport, Railways, Transport A section of a railroad where the block system is used.
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A contiguous range of Unicode code points used to encode characters of a specific type; can be of any size evenly divisible by 16, up to 65,536 (a full plane).
- The "Specials" block comprises the sixteen codepoints from U+FFF0 through U+FFFF.
Education A yeargroup at Eton College.
A contiguous group of urban lots of property, typically several acres in extent, not crossed by public streets.
- I’m going for a walk around the block.
The distance from one street to another in a city or suburb that is built (approximately) to a grid pattern.
- The place you are looking for is two long blocks east and one short block north.
- The Witness: Well, I have one that is 8/10 of a mile away; I have one that is just about another 8/10 of a mile away; I have one that is three blocks away; I have one that is four blocks away; I have one that is eight blocks away, and I have one that is about 14 blocks away.1832, Records and Briefs of the United States Supreme Court, page 423:
2 more examples
- This uphill trail is like a battlefield. Anne offers to carry the older woman's backpack. […] I couldn't walk three blocks with the Danish woman's bulging backpack.2009, Hape Kerkeling, I'm Off Then, page 241:
- A county courthouse and a municipal building, located approximately a city block north of the district, were automatically excluded because they were separated from the main CBD by several blocks that did not reach either of the required index values.2017, Raymond E. Murphy, The Central Business District, page 37:
A cuboid or approximately cuboid building.
- a block of flats; a tower block; an office block; a toilet block; a shower block
- He turned back to the scene before him and the enormous new block of council dwellings. The design was some way after Corbusier but the block was built up on plinths and resembled an Atlantic liner swimming diagonally across the site.1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
A cellblock.
Something that prevents something from passing.
- There’s a block in the pipe that means the water can’t get through.
Interference or obstruction of cognitive processes.
- I work with writers/artists/others using artistic skills as a tool to explore blocks and free creative energy.1977 April 1, “COUNSELING (personal advertisement)”, in Gay Community News, page 14:
- a mental block
1 more example
- writer’s block
Backgammon, Games Any point on the board where two or more men rest, and consequently an opponent may not land.
Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports An action to interfere with the movement of an opposing player or of the object of play (ball, puck).
- The match proved an unedifying spectacle until Spurs won a corner following their first move of real quality, John Mensah making an important block with Jermain Defoe poised to strike.2011 February 12, Oliver Brett, “Sunderland 1–2 Tottenham”, in BBC:
› Something that prevents something from passing. › An action to interfere with the movement of…
Ball games, Cricket, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports A shot played by holding the bat vertically in the path of the ball, so that it loses momentum and drops to the ground.
Ball games, Cricket, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports The position of a player or bat when guarding the wicket.
Ball games, Cricket, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports A blockhole.
Ball games, Cricket, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports The popping crease.
Ball games, Games, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports, Volleyball A defensive play by one or more players meant to deflect a spiked ball back to the hitter’s court.
Gymnastics, Hobbies, Lifestyle, Sports The portion of the movement where a gymnast pushes off the vault.
- While it might seem like she should bend her elbows in order to spring up — the way you bend your knees in order to jump — a good block actually requires the gymnast to keep her arms straight and use her shoulder strength to launch into the air.2024 July 27, Maggie Astor, “Your Guide to Olympic Gymnastics: Vault”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 31 Jul 2024:
› Something that prevents something from passing.
Computing, Engineering, Mathematics, Natural sciences, Physical sciences, Sciences A temporary or permanent ban that prevents access to an online account or service, or connection to or from a designated telephone number, IP address, or similar.
- The Wiktionary page-blanking vandal was hit with an indefinite block.
- I’ve put a block on calls from that number.
Slang The human head.
- I’ll knock your block off!
UK Solitary confinement.
Obsolete A blockhead; a stupid person; a dolt.
- What a block art thou!c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene v]:
- Derived terms
338 terms
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- bloc