to choke up
16
4.6
- phrasal verb
- /tʃoʊk ʌp/
:
emocionarse
- "As the trooper talked with us, he got kind of choked up," said Dunn.
- get choked up
- choked up to speak
- choked up with emotion
And I choked up and I couldn't go.
- And I choked up and I couldn't go.
- Scott Welch got choked up, Ruth got choked up.
- It I start to choke up whenever people are nice to me, I'd start crying.
- I mean, that actually got me choked up.
- Is it, is it, is it wrong that you get choked up when you talk about nothing wrong with that?
- I watched this and I choked up because this is where God is kind of working my heart.
- And in the op-ed, he writes about the fact that that night his son had come into, it's going to make me choke up.
Examples
-
"Where are we going?" she says, but I'm too choked up to answer.
Fiction book (1993) -
I always get choked up when I see that, see that card.
-
How can you not get choked up at all this?
-
God, you can get choked up even thinking about it right now.
-
In fact, I get choked up thinking about it.
-
Sometimes she gets choked up when I talk to her on the phone.
Fiction book (2002) -
I got extremely choked up when I got my race number in my hands.
Blog text (8) -
And so I'm getting choked up because you're really here and it's so wonderful.
-
"Betsy wanted to thank Highsmith for his kind words, but she was too choked up to speak.
Fiction book (1994) -
I choked up during the touching speech at the memorial service.
Synonyms
4
5.4
To speak in a weak, broken voice because of strong feeling
1
7.4
Say something with great difficulty because you feel upset or nervous
1
7.8
To stop speaking because you feel nervous, embarrassed, or upset
Antonyms
How Emotional
Surface Forms
Morphology
choke + up
The meaning is a metaphorical extension of 'choke' (having difficulty breathing or speaking) with the particle 'up' serving as an intensifier, so the idea of throat-tightening when upset is somewhat inferable from the parts. However, the emotional sense is figurative rather than strictly compositional, so a B1 learner might approximate the meaning but would not fully predict the exact nuance without prior exposure.
Etymology
Choke up comes from the image of your throat filling and tightening so you cannot speak when you are very sad or moved. So, choke up means 'to become so emotional that it is difficult to speak'.