Word.ws English Dictionary

block

UK/blɒk//blɑk/

block noun: a substantial, often approximately cuboid, piece of any substance. Also the misspelling of bloc.

Noun

block (plural blocks)

  1. 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.
    1. 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
    2. 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
    3. 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]...
    4. (dated) A piece of hard wood on which a stereotype or electrotype plate is mounted.
    5. 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.
    6. 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
    7. A set of sheets (of paper) joined together at one end, forming a cuboid shape.
      • a block of 100 tickets
    8. The perch on which a bird of prey is kept.
    9. 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)
  2. A physical area or extent of something, often rectangular or approximately rectangular.
    • a block of text; a block of colour; a block of land
    1. A joined group of four (or in some cases nine) postage stamps, forming a roughly square shape.
    2. A discrete group of vines in a vineyard, often distinguished from others by variety, clone, canopy training method, irrigation infrastructure, or some combination thereof.
  3. 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
    1. 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...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
    2. 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
    3. A fixed-length group of bits making up part of a message.
    4. A portion of a macromolecule, comprising many units, that has at least one feature not present in adjacent portions.
    5. A section of a railroad where the block system is used.
    6. 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.
    7. A yeargroup at Eton College.
  4. 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.
    1. 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
  5. 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
    1. A cellblock.
  6. Something that prevents something from passing.
    • There’s a block in the pipe that means the water can’t get through.
    1. 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
    2. Any point on the board where two or more men rest, and consequently an opponent may not land.
    3. 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
    4. A shot played by holding the bat vertically in the path of the ball, so that it loses momentum and drops to the ground.
    5. The position of a player or bat when guarding the wicket.
    6. A blockhole.
    7. The popping crease.
    8. A defensive play by one or more players meant to deflect a spiked ball back to the hitter’s court.
    9. 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
    10. (social media) 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.
  7. (slang) The human head.
    • I’ll knock your block off!
  8. (UK) Solitary confinement.
  9. (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...

Verb

block (third-person singular simple present blocks, present participle blocking, simple past and past participle blocked)

  1. (transitive) To fill or obstruct (something) so that it is not possible to pass.
    • The pipe was blocked by leaves.
    • You’re blocking the road – I can’t get through!
    Synonyms:
    stop, choke
  2. (transitive) To prevent (something or someone) from passing.
    • A broken-down car is blocking the traffic.
  3. (transitive) To prevent (something from happening or someone from doing something).
    • His plan to take over the business was blocked by the boss.
    • Mr. Ip, who was the chairman of the Yau Tsim Mong district council, became a target of protesters in July after he blocked debate on the extradition bill that incited the protests this summer.2019 November 25, Austin Ramzy, Tiffany May, Katherine Li, Elaine Yu, “Here’s What 5 of Hong Kong’s Newly Elected Politicians Have to Say”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...
  4. (transitive) To impede (an opponent or opponent’s play).
    • He blocked the basketball player’s shot.
    • The offensive linemen tried to block the blitz.
  5. (transitive) To specify the positions and movements of the actors for (a section of a play or film).
    • It was very difficult to block this scene convincingly.
  6. (transitive) To hit with a block.
  7. (intransitive) To play a block shot.
  8. (transitive) To bar (impose a ban on a person or bot, etc.) from connecting via telephone, instant messaging, etc., or from accessing an online account or service, or similar.
    • I tried to send you a message, but you’ve blocked me!
    • The user who started the edit war was blocked for a day to cool off.
    Synonyms:
    nuclear block
  9. (transitive) To bar (a message or communication), or bar connection with (an online account or service, a designated telephone number, IP address, etc.).
    • They’ve blocked all calls to international numbers.
    • Most Internet services have been blocked.
  10. (intransitive) To wait for some condition to become true.
    • When the condition expression is false, the thread blocks on the condition variable.
    • Post is a “fire and forget” where the UI thread work is performed asynchronously; Send is synchronous in that the call blocks until the UI thread work has been performed.2014, Richard Blewett, Andrew Clymer, Pro Asynchronous Programming with .NET, page 25
  11. (transitive) To shape, stretch, or mould knitted items, hats, books (and book covers), shoes, etc.
    • I blocked the mittens by wetting them and pinning them to a shaped piece of cardboard.
    • Then I finished knitting the socks and wove in all ends for each sock before soaking them in warm water and wool wash for 20 minutes and blocking them on sock blockers.2026, Stefanie Johnson, “Color-Block Socks”, in Spin Off, volume L, number 1, page 77
  12. (transitive) To shape or sketch out roughly.
    • When drawing a scene, first block the main features, and then fill in the detail.
Show 3 more meaningsShow fewer meanings
  1. (intransitive) To experience mental block or creative block.
    • As I started to read the stories I thought, "I have to write my story," but I blocked on it for six months. I couldn't write anything else while I couldn't write my coming out story. It seemed to me a subterfuge to turn out an anthology of coming out stories which didn't have my story in it.1976 April 26, Jil Clark, Julia Penelope, Susan Wolfe, “The Politics of Language”, in Gay Community News, page 8
  2. (obsolete, slang, transitive) To knock the hat of (a person) down over their eyes.
    Synonyms:
    bonnet
  3. To reject or not play into one's scene partner during improv.

Proper noun capitalized: Block

Block (countable and uncountable, plural Blocks)

  1. A surname.
    • The major themes in Francesca Lia Block's books include the necessity of love and the acceptance of and celebration of racial and sexual difference.1994, Tom Pendergast, Sara Pendergast, Gay & Lesbian Literature: Introduction to gay male literature, page 37
    • Zachary Block chats with Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen about their new show, Portlandia, which airs on IFC, Fridays at 10:30.2011 January 25, “Portlandia”, in BOMB
    1. A surname from German
    2. A surname from Dutch
    3. An English surname
    4. A Jewish surname
  2. An unincorporated community in Champaign County, Illinois, United States.
  3. An unincorporated community in Miami County, Kansas, United States.
  4. An unincorporated community in Campbell County, Tennessee, United States.

Also used as

block is also the misspelling of bloc.

block meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Bengali

block in Hindi

group of buildings demarcated by streets
खंड khaṇḍ
something that prevents passing
अवरोध avrodh
sports: action to interfere
रोकना roknā
distance from one street to another
खंड khaṇḍ

block in Tamil

to prevent passing
தடு taṭu

block in Marathi

ब्लॉक करा, अवरोधित करा, ब्लॉक

block in Bengali

ব্লক করুন, ব্লক, ব্লক করা
More languagesFewer languages
block in Punjabi
ਬਲਾਕ ਕਰੋ, ਬਲਾਕ, ਬਲੌਕ ਕਰੋ
block in Gujarati
બ્લોક કરો, બ્લોક, અવરોધિત કરો
block in Tagalog
bloke
block in Arabic
طَابُوقَة ṭābūqa
block in Malay
bongkah, papan
block in Indonesian
balok, blok, menghalangi, mencegah
block in Persian
بلوک blok
block in Thai
บล็อก blɔ́k, ช่วงตึก
block in Vietnamese
bờ lốc, chặn, cấm
block in Myanmar
တုံး tum:

Examples of block in a sentence

  • Dawn and Shorty would cut this tree into blocks, while Randy and Matt went back for more.2012, Ron Herrett, Shorty's Story:
  • 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.2011 November 23, Benjamin Wallace, “The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin”, in Wired, San Francisco, Calif.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC...
  • 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:
  • Despite the fact that ice blocks its harbors in heavy winters, the Baltic has become one of the world's most active seas.1989 May, Priit J. Vesilind, “The Baltic: Arena of Power”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 613:

All 40 example sentences with block

Synonyms of block

20 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of block

Forms of block

Noun
pluralblocks
alternative form (obsolete)blocke
Verb
third-person singular presentblocks
present participleblocking
past participleblocked
pastblocked
Proper noun
pluralBlocks

Past tense of block: blocked

Plural of block: blocks

Origin of block

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.

* A Germanic surname (German, Dutch and English), from German Block and Dutch blok respectively. As an English surname from the same cognate, block. * As a Jewish surname, Americanized from Bloch. Also see Vlach.

Words formed from block

Phrases with block

166 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with block

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about block

What does block mean?
Block means a substantial, often approximately cuboid, piece of any substance.
What is block in Hindi?
Block in Hindi is खंड (khaṇḍ), रोकना (roknā), अवरोध (avrodh). See Block meaning in Hindi.
How do you use block in a sentence?
Dawn and Shorty would cut this tree into blocks, while Randy and Matt went back for more.
What part of speech is block?
Block can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce block?
Block is pronounced /blɒk/ (UK).
What is the plural of block?
The plural of block is blocks.

Words near block in the dictionary

  1. Blocher
  2. Blochers
  3. Blochian
  4. blochiid
  5. blochiids
  6. block
  7. block and tackle
  8. block and tackles
  9. block book
  10. block booking
  11. block bookings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: block (page history and authors); Block (page history and authors); block (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); block (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); block (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); block (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-block.ogg, en-au-block.ogg.

Cite this entry: “block.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/block. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.