to chock up
- phrasal verb
- /tʃɑk ʌp/
- UK
- We managed to chock up the entire trunk with luggage for our trip.
Examples
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Vendors chock up their shelves with goods before the holiday season.
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The workers chocked up the trailer with supplies.
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The stadium was chocked up with fans for the championship game.
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They need to chock up the boxes in the truck!
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The vendors chock up their shelves with fresh produce every morning.
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For the picnic, we chock up the car with all our favorite snacks and drinks.
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The stadium was chocked up with fans waiting for the concert to start.
Synonyms
To fill a car, box, or yourself with things until each is full
Close a hole or gap by putting material into it
Push people or things together so they cannot move easily
Push things or people into a small space until nothing fits
To make something so full that nothing else can fit
To put too many items into a bag or case
To put too much into something so it cannot close or is too full
To put too much into something so it spills out
Fill a place or container until there is no room left
To pack many things into a small space very tightly
Antonyms
How Full
Surface Forms
Morphology
The particle 'up' signals completion or filling, and 'chock' has a sense of jamming/wedging, so a learner who knows both constituents could plausibly infer a meaning like 'jam or pack tightly'. However, 'chock' is low-frequency in this sense and the exact sense 'fill to capacity' is not an immediately obvious, standard compositional pattern for many learners, making the expression only partially predictable.
Etymology
Chock up may come from the word chock, a small wedge or block used to stop things moving. If people pushed these wedges in until there was no space left, they were filling and holding the load tight, so chock up came to mean 'to pack or fill something so full that no more can be added'.