Word.ws English Dictionary

stick in someone's throat

stick in someone's throat verb: to be too difficult to speak. Also the alternative form of stick in someone's craw.

Verb

stick in someone's throat (third-person singular simple present sticks in someone's throat, present participle sticking in someone's throat, simple past and past participle stuck in someone's throat)

  1. To be too difficult to speak.
    • In truth, it seems that the words 'I do not know' stick in every physician's throat.2012, Salvatore Mangione, Physical Diagnosis Secrets
    • to that hour of complete self-recognition before God when excuse and argument stick in the throat, then the intrinsically fallen and “base” property he has used with love will come forward and testify for him.2012, Romano Guardini, The Lord
  2. To cause an aching sensation in the throat as if something is stuck there.
    • His breath stuck in his throat.2008, Deeanne Gist, Deep in the Heart of Trouble, page 307
    • “It may not be like that,” he said, as soon as his heart was no longer rising to stick in his throat.2013, Charles Sheffield, Summertide
  3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see stick, throat.
    • I took so many of them, felt them stick in my throat and I swallowed and swallowed to get them down, and I sat with that bottle and chanted, more, more, more, and then the bottle was nearly empty and I thought suddenly, Wait, I don't want to die2002, Catherine Coulter, Hemlock Bay
    • Realizing he that he had just revealed his guilt, he swiftly spun around to flee, only to have a sword stuck in his throat.2012, Gary T. Brideau, River of Fire, page 30

Also used as

stick in someone's throat is also the alternative form of stick in someone's craw.

Forms of stick in someone's throat

third-person singular presentsticks in someone's throat
present participlesticking in someone's throat
past participlestuck in someone's throat
paststuck in someone's throat

Questions about stick in someone's throat

What does stick in someone's throat mean?
Stick in someone's throat means to be too difficult to speak.
What part of speech is stick in someone's throat?
Stick in someone's throat is a verb.
What is the past tense of stick in someone's throat?
The past tense of stick in someone's throat is stuck in someone's throat.

Words near stick in someone's throat in the dictionary

  1. stick frogs
  2. stick in one's gizzard
  3. stick in one’s ass
  4. stick in someone's craw
  5. stick in someone's gullet
  6. stick in someone's throat
  7. stick in the mud
  8. stick in the muds
  9. stick insect
  10. stick insects
  11. stick it

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stick in someone's throat (page history and authors). 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:

Cite this entry: “stick in someone's throat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stick_in_someone%27s_throat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.