choking

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtʃəʊkɪŋ/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈt͡ʃoʊkɪŋ/

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• Rhymes: -əʊkɪŋ

choking (countable and uncountable, plural chokings)

1. The process in which a person's airway becomes blocked, resulting in asphyxia in cases that are not treated promptly.
   • 1988, American Academy of Pediatrics, Policy Reference Guide, page 150:

     In the last 6 years, there has been a great effort to educate the public concerning the prevention of choking due to accidental aspiration of foods or small objects by children.

   • 1998, Christina Elston, Safe and Secure: The Loving Parent's Guide to Child Safety, page 248:

     The study found that 29 percent of nonfood-related chokings were caused by latex balloons.

   • 2001, Mayo Clinic Guide to Self-care, page 4:

     Choking occurs when the respiratory passage in the throat or windpipe is blocked.

2. The act of coughing when a person finds it difficult to breath.
   • 1838, Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, page 98:

     Putting the latter on her head and the former on the table, the old woman, after telling Oliver that she had come to sit up with him, drew her chair close to the fire and went off into a series of short naps, chequered at frequent intervals with sundry tumblings forward, and divers moans and chokings.

   • 1848, William Harcourt Ranking, Charles Bland Radcliffe, William Domett Stone, The Half-yearly Abstract of the Medical Sciences, page 40:

     The chokings, which now always succeed every epileptic sleep, are violent beyond description, and last a long time.

   • 1853, The Zoist, page 127:

     "I applied,” says he in his first memoir, “a large plate of copper upon the pit of the stomach and a ring of the same metal around each limb: and in three or four minutes the chokings, palpitations, and vomitings ceased.

3. The act of trying to kill a person by strangulation.
   • 1966, Reports of Cases in Law and Equity Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa, page 933:

     She tells of many chokings and blows inflicted by the defendant, and says her health was thereby affected and, presumably, her life endangered.

   • 1972, Burton M. Atkins, Henry R. Glick, Prisons, Protest, and Politics, page 52:

     This particular man was a small, wiry , athletic Negro who had confessed to many chokings and rapings of young women.

   • 2016, California. Supreme Court. Records and Briefs:

     Judges should not decide which police chokings are acceptable, and which are not, based on Orwellian newspeak.

• choking game

choking

1. present participle and gerund of choke

• Hocking, hocking