choke out

Verb

choke out (third-person singular simple present chokes out, present participle choking out, simple past and past participle choked out)

1. (transitive) To say (something) with difficulty, while or as if choking.
   • Language failed. Pause—impotent struggle for further words—then he gave it up, choked out a deep, strong oath, and departed for good.1883, Mark Twain, chapter 30, in Life on the Mississippi
   • He choked out the confession with the recklessness of final despair.1907, Booth Tarkington, chapter 10, in His Own People
2. (transitive) To prevent (something) from growing by overwhelming it or robbing it of nutrients.
   • We had reached the end of the grass where the bush and trees of the mountain slope had choked it out […]1907, Percy FitzPatrick, “Buffalo Bushfire and Wild Dogs”, in Jock of the Bushveld, London: Longmans, Green, page 280
   • A grove of oaks, sturdy, spreading wide their branches clad in green-bronze leaves, had thrived to the elimination of spruces, except a few giants that could not be choked out.1931, Zane Grey, chapter 14, in Sunset Pass, New York: Pocket Books, page 224
3. (transitive) To extinguish (fire) (by depriving it of oxygen or fuel).
   • Of many people, his friends, he had asked that they would kindle again the smouldering embers of their experience; he had blown the low fires gently with his breath, and had leaned his face towards their glow, and had breathed in the words that rose like fumes from the revived embers, till he was...1922, D. H. Lawrence, “A Modern Lover”, in A Modern Lover and Other Stories, New York: Ballantine, published 1969, pages 2–3
4. (figuratively, transitive) To destroy (something) by depriving it of a vital resource.
   • […] he would earnestly and pathetically plead that we should not, as Priests, suffer the serving of tables to choke out that inner life of the spirit which it was our first duty to feed and nourish.1915, Henry Scott Holland, chapter 10, in A Bundle of Memories, London: Wells Gardner, Darton

   Synonyms:

   smother, starve, stifle

5. (transitive) To prevent (light) from passing through.
   • Although this ivy had choked out what little light might have trickled into the room, it was not strong enough to prevent the birds from finding a way through and from visiting Lady Gertrude at any hour of night or day.1946, Mervyn Peake, “Tallow and Birdseed”, in Titus Groan, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode
   • The moment he pushes open the door the place speaks to me of prehistoric times […] when above the oozing bog that was the earth, swirling white gasses choked out the sunlight […]1969, Philip Roth, “The Jewish Blues”, in Portnoy’s Complaint, New York: Vintage

   Synonyms:

   block, obstruct

6. (transitive) To cause (a person) to lose consciousness by applying a chokehold.
   • We got out of the car, the guy resisted, and I choked him out. The bar arm was the tool of choice in those days. If anybody resisted, we just choked him out.2014, Gary Farmer, The Streets Are Blue, page 302