Definition of "block"

block¹

/blɒk/

noun
plural blocks
1. A substantial, often approximately cuboid, piece of any substance.
  1. A chopping block: a cuboid base for cutting or beheading.
    Quotations
    You young porkers who are sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year.
    1945 August 17, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 1, in Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg
  2. A wig block: a simplified head model upon which wigs are worn.
    Quotations
    Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade’s bill; using, however, my comrade’s money.
    1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “chapter 13”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley
  3. A mould on which hats, bonnets, etc., are shaped.
    Quotations
    He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block.
    1598–1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “Much Adoe about Nothing”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]
  4. (printing, dated) A piece of hard wood on which a stereotype or electrotype plate is mounted.
  5. A case or frame housing one or more sheaves (pulleys), used with ropes to increase or redirect force, for example as part of lifting gear or a sailing ship's rigging. See also block and tackle.
  6. A section of split logs used as fuel.
    Quotations
    She said, 'I hope I shall not be left to kill myself, but It would be no more sin to kill me, than to put a block on the fire.'
    1833, The Gospel Anchor, volume 2, page 371
    "Aye," said the farmer putting another block on the fire as he spoke […]
    1803, Mary Tighe, Selena
    Dawn and Shorty would cut this tree into blocks, while Randy and Matt went back for more. Dawn and Shorty made a good team on the crosscut, so when another log arrived, the first was almost completely made into shake wood.
    2012, Ron Herrett, Shorty's Story
  7. A set of sheets (of paper) joined together at one end, forming a cuboid shape.
  8. (falconry) The perch on which a bird of prey is kept.
  9. (cellular automata) In Conway's Game of Life, a still life consisting of four living cells arranged in a two-by-two square.
    Quotations
    But there are many queen bee configurations in which the debris is neutralized, including placement of a block or eater near the bee's turnaround point, or placing two queen bees in a line or at right angles in various positions and phases.
    1989 October 31, Scott Huddleston, “life: glider guns”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet)
    Perhaps the simplest puffer known is the following period 20 puffer based on the period 20 spaceship, which creates blocks.
    1997 November 30, David Bell, “Day & Night - An Interesting Variant of Life (part 5/5)”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet)
    Blocks have a couple of unusual properties: they are cleanly destroyed by an incoming glider on any one of six adjacent paths, and none of the possible collisions include any output gliders, so you can't get chain reactions.
    2005 February 23, Dave Greene, “exist glider gun able of reconstruction in Life?”, in comp.theory.cell-automata‎ (Usenet)
2. A physical area or extent of something, often rectangular or approximately rectangular.
  1. (philately) A joined group of four (or in some cases nine) postage stamps, forming a roughly square shape.
  2. (viticulture) A discrete group of vines in a vineyard, often distinguished from others by variety, clone, canopy training method, irrigation infrastructure, or some combination thereof.
3. A logical extent or region; a grouping or apportionment of like things treated together as a unit.
  1. (computing) A logical data storage unit containing one or more physical sectors.
    Quotations
    After one disk is mapped, the next block starts at address 0 on the next disk.
    2003, Dilip M. Ranade, Shared Data Clusters, page 79
  2. (programming) A region of code in a program that acts as a single unit, such as a function or loop.
    Quotations
    With a foreach block, you don't need to create an explicit counter variable.
    2006, Matthew MacDonald, Beginning ASP.NET 2.0 in C# 2005: From Novice to Professional, page 49
  3. (cryptography) A fixed-length group of bits making up part of a message.
  4. (chemistry) A portion of a macromolecule, comprising many units, that has at least one feature not present in adjacent portions.
  5. (rail transport) A section of a railroad where the block system is used.
  6. (computing) A contiguous range of Unicode code points used to encode characters of a specific type; can be of any size evenly divisible by 16, up to 65,536 (a full plane).
4. A contiguous group of urban lots of property, typically several acres in extent, not crossed by public streets.
  1. The distance from one street to another in a city or suburb that is built (approximately) to a grid pattern.
    Quotations
    The Witness: Well, I have one that is 8/10 of a mile away; I have one that is just about another 8/10 of a mile away; I have one that is three blocks away; I have one that is four blocks away; I have one that is eight blocks away, and I have one that is about 14 blocks away.
    1832, Records and Briefs of the United States Supreme Court, page 423
    This uphill trail is like a battlefield. Anne offers to carry the older woman's backpack. […] I couldn't walk three blocks with the Danish woman's bulging backpack.
    2009, Hape Kerkeling, I'm Off Then‎, page 241
    A county courthouse and a municipal building, located approximately a city block north of the district, were automatically excluded because they were separated from the main CBD by several blocks that did not reach either of the required index values.
    2017, Raymond E. Murphy, The Central Business District, page 37
5. A roughly cuboid building.
  Quotations
  He turned back to the scene before him and the enormous new block of council dwellings. The design was some way after Corbusier but the block was built up on plinths and resembled an Atlantic liner swimming diagonally across the site.
  1963, Margery Allingham, “Foreword”, in The China Governess‎
  1. A cellblock.
6. Something that prevents something from passing.
  1. Interference or obstruction of cognitive processes.
    Quotations
    I work with writers/artists/others using artistic skills as a tool to explore blocks and free creative energy.
    1977 April 1, “COUNSELING (personal advertisement)”, in Gay Community News, page 14
  2. (sports) An action to interfere with the movement of an opposing player or of the object of play (ball, puck).
    Quotations
    The match proved an unedifying spectacle until Spurs won a corner following their first move of real quality, John Mensah making an important block with Jermain Defoe poised to strike.
    2011 February 12, Oliver Brett, “Sunderland 1–2 Tottenham”, in BBC‎
    (cricket) A shot played by holding the bat vertically in the path of the ball, so that it loses momentum and drops to the ground.
    (cricket) The position of a player or bat when guarding the wicket.
    (cricket) A blockhole.
    (cricket) The popping crease.
    (volleyball) A defensive play by one or more players meant to deflect a spiked ball back to the hitter’s court.
  3. A temporary or permanent ban that prevents access to an online account or service, or connection to or from a designated telephone number, IP address, or similar.
7. (slang) The human head.
8. (UK) Solitary confinement.
9. (obsolete) A blockhead; a stupid person; a dolt.
  Quotations
  What a block art thou!
  c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene v]
verb
third-person singular simple present blocks, present participle blocking, simple past and past participle blocked
1. (transitive) To fill or obstruct (something) so that it is not possible to pass.
  Quotations
  However, at Manchester the junctions and signals are so close that a train running more slowly over several junctions simply blocks those junctions for longer, preventing other trains moving.
  2020 January 2, Philip Haigh, “Is there relief to congestion along Castlefield Corridor?”, in Rail, page 23
2. (transitive) To prevent (something or someone) from passing.
3. (transitive) To prevent (something from happening or someone from doing something).
  Quotations
  Mr. Ip, who was the chairman of the Yau Tsim Mong district council, became a target of protesters in July after he blocked debate on the extradition bill that incited the protests this summer.
  2019 November 25, Austin Ramzy, Tiffany May, Katherine Li, Elaine Yu, “Here’s What 5 of Hong Kong’s Newly Elected Politicians Have to Say”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 2019-11-25‎
4. (transitive, sports) To impede (an opponent or opponent's play).
5. (transitive, theater) To specify the positions and movements of the actors for (a section of a play or film).
6. (transitive, cricket) To hit with a block.
7. (intransitive, cricket) To play a block shot.
8. (transitive) To bar (a person or bot, etc.) from connecting via telephone, instant messaging, etc., or from accessing an online account or service, or similar.
9. (transitive) To bar (a message or communication), or bar connection with (an online account or service, a designated telephone number, IP address, etc.).
10. (programming, intransitive) To wait for some condition to become true.
  Quotations
  Post is a “fire and forget” where the UI thread work is performed asynchronously; Send is synchronous in that the call blocks until the UI thread work has been performed.
  2014, Richard Blewett, Andrew Clymer, Pro Asynchronous Programming with .NET, page 25
11. (transitive) To stretch or mould (a knitted item, a hat, etc.) into the desired shape.
12. (transitive) To shape or sketch out roughly.
13. (intransitive) To experience mental block or creative block.
  Quotations
  As I started to read the stories I thought, "I have to write my story," but I blocked on it for six months. I couldn't write anything else while I couldn't write my coming out story. It seemed to me a subterfuge to turn out an anthology of coming out stories which didn't have my story in it.
  1976 April 26, Jil Clark, Julia Penelope, Susan Wolfe, “The Politics of Language”, in Gay Community News, page 8
14. (transitive, slang, obsolete) To knock the hat of (a person) down over their eyes.

block²

/blɒk/

noun
1. Misspelling of bloc.