choking

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)The process in which a person's airway becomes blocked, resulting in asphyxia in cases that are not treated promptly.

   “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.”

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

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

2. (countable, uncountable)The act of coughing when a person finds it difficult to breathe.

   “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.”

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

   “"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. (countable, uncountable)The act of trying to kill a person by strangulation.

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

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

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

4. (countable, uncountable)The result of something being choked.

   “This feature has been found effective in reducing injector trouble, resulting either from the clogging of sieves or the choking of the annular orifices of the injectors by fine particles of coal.”

verb

1. (form-of, gerund, participle, present)present participle and gerund of choke