View synonyms for

choke up

verb

to block (a drain, pipe, etc) completely
informal��(usually passive) to overcome (a person) with emotion, esp without due cause

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Idioms and Phrases

Block a channel or other passage, as in Vegetation choked up the creek like a dam . [Late 1600s]

Be too emotional or upset to speak, as in She became so emotional about winning that she choked up and was unable to give an interview .

Become too nervous or tense in a critical situation to perform, as in He's fine during practice but in a match he tends to choke up . This usage, also put as to choke alone, is especially common in sports. [ Colloquial ; mid-1900s]

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Asked if that container may have had other types of mushrooms in it, Ms Patterson, choking up, said: "Now I think there's a possibility that there were foraged ones as well."

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Lane recalls watching the play and choking up when Lavin absent-mindedly wiped off a phone receiver — her character was always cleaning — right after a wrenching phone call.

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Her voice choking up, she explained doctors performed an emergency caesarean to get her son out quickly.

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"I'm flabbergasted that he's not angry with what's happened to him – I just can't believe that he's not angry. I'm choking up thinking about it."

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Dyer said he was "choked up" by his win, before joking: "So my acting was so bad, it was funny?"

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chokes chokey

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