chockablock

[prettygoodword]

chockablock or chock-a-block or chock a block (CHOK-uh-BLOK) - adj., extremely full, crowded, jammed. adv., in a crowded manner, completely closed and full.


Originally a nautical term for the when the blocks of hoisting tackle have been pulled together so that no further movement is possible -- so the blocks are stuck, as if fixed in place by chocks. Imagine the lines in these are pulled until the round blocks are closed up:


Thanks, WikiMedia!

Chocks themselves go back to Anglo-Norman, origin uncertain but apparently Gaulish, in turn taken from a Germanic root. Block has a solid PIE root meaning a thick piece of wood, in this sense also via Anglo-Norman instead of its Old English cognate which meant a plank or more specifically a ship's gangway.

---L.

Comments

[flwyd]

This brings to mind the phrase "blocking and tackling," which I'd always assumed (and online etymologies also conclude) was based on American football terms. But maybe it came from mechanical block and tackle systems, and your "blocking and tackling work" is what does "the heavy lifting."

[prettygoodword]

I always assumed American football, too. I wonder what Google N-gram can tell us about relative dates.