From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Blockage \Block"age\, n.
The act of blocking up; the state of being blocked up.
[1913 Webster]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Block \Block\ (bl[o^]k), n. [OE. blok; cf. F. bloc (fr. OHG.),
D. & Dan. blok, Sw. & G. block, OHG. bloch. There is also an
OHG. bloch, biloh; bi by + the same root as that of E. lock.
Cf. {Block}, v. t., {Blockade}, and see {Lock}.]
[1913 Webster]
1. A piece of wood more or less bulky; a solid mass of wood,
stone, etc., usually with one or more plane, or
approximately plane, faces; as, a block on which a butcher
chops his meat; a block by which to mount a horse;
children's playing blocks, etc.
[1913 Webster]
Now all our neighbors' chimneys smoke,
And Christmas blocks are burning. --Wither.
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All her labor was but as a block
Left in the quarry. --Tennyson.
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2. The solid piece of wood on which condemned persons lay
their necks when they are beheaded.
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Noble heads which have been brought to the block.
--E. Everett.
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3. The wooden mold on which hats, bonnets, etc., are shaped.
Hence: The pattern or shape of a hat.
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He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it
ever changes with the next block. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
4. A large or long building divided into separate houses or
shops, or a number of houses or shops built in contact
with each other so as to form one building; a row of
houses or shops.
[1913 Webster]
5. A square, or portion of a city inclosed by streets,
whether occupied by buildings or not.
[1913 Webster]
The new city was laid out in rectangular blocks,
each block containing thirty building lots. Such an
average block, comprising 282 houses and covering
nine acres of ground, exists in Oxford Street.
--Lond. Quart.
Rev.
[1913 Webster]
6. A grooved pulley or sheave incased in a frame or shell
which is provided with a hook, eye, or strap, by which it
may be attached to an object. It is used to change the
direction of motion, as in raising a heavy object that can
not be conveniently reached, and also, when two or more
such sheaves are compounded, to change the rate of motion,
or to exert increased force; -- used especially in the
rigging of ships, and in tackles.
[1913 Webster]
7. (Falconry) The perch on which a bird of prey is kept.
[1913 Webster]
8. Any obstruction, or cause of obstruction; a stop; a
hindrance; an obstacle; -- also called {blockage}; as, a
block in the way; a block in an artery; a block in a
nerve; a block in a biochemical pathway.
[1913 Webster]
9. A piece of box or other wood for engravers' work.
[1913 Webster]
10. (Print.) A piece of hard wood (as mahogany or cherry) on
which a stereotype or electrotype plate is mounted to
make it type high.
[1913 Webster]
11. A blockhead; a stupid fellow; a dolt. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
What a block art thou ! --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
12. A section of a railroad where the block system is used.
See {Block system}, below.
[1913 Webster]
13. In Australia, one of the large lots into which public
land, when opened to settlers, is divided by the
government surveyors.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
14. (Cricket)
(a) The position of a player or bat when guarding the
wicket.
(b) A block hole.
(c) The popping crease. [R.]
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
15. a number of individual items sold as a unit; as, a block
of airline ticketes; a block of hotel rooms; a block of
stock.
[PJC]
16. the length of one side of a city block[5], traversed
along any side; as, to walk three blocks ahead and turn
left at the corner.
[PJC]
17. a halt in a mental process, especially one due to stress,
memory lapse, confusion, etc.; as, a writer's block; to
have a block in remembering a name.
[PJC]
18. (computers) a quantity of binary-encoded information
transferred, or stored, as a unit to, from, or on a data
storage device; as, to divide a disk into 512-byte
blocks.
[PJC]
19. (computers) a number of locations in a random-access
memory allocated to storage of specific data; as, to
allocate a block of 1024 bytes for the stack.
[PJC]
{A block of shares} (Stock Exchange), a large number of
shares in a stock company, sold in a lump. --Bartlett.
{Block printing}.
(a) A mode of printing (common in China and Japan) from
engraved boards by means of a sheet of paper laid on
the linked surface and rubbed with a brush. --S. W.
Williams.
(b) A method of printing cotton cloth and paper hangings
with colors, by pressing them upon an engraved
surface coated with coloring matter.
{Block system} on railways, a system by which the track is
divided into sections of three or four miles, and trains
are so run by the guidance of electric signals that no
train enters a section or block before the preceding train
has left it.
{Back blocks}, Australian pastoral country which is remote
from the seacoast or from a river.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
blockage
n 1: the physical condition of blocking or filling a passage
with an obstruction [syn: {obstruction}, {blockage}]
2: an obstruction in a pipe or tube; "we had to call a plumber
to clear out the blockage in the drainpipe" [syn: {blockage},
{block}, {closure}, {occlusion}, {stop}, {stoppage}]
3: the act of blocking [syn: {blockage}, {closure}, {occlusion}]
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