BLOCKADE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Blockade

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/blˌɑkˈeɪd/ Listen

noun

Blockade n.

The shutting up of a place by troops or ships, with the purpose of preventing ingress or egress, or the reception of supplies; as, the blockade of the ports of an enemy. Note: Blockade is now usually applied to an investment with ships or vessels, while siege is used of an investment by land forces. To constitute a blockade, the investing power must be able to apply its force to every point of practicable access, so as to render it dangerous to attempt to enter; and there is no blockade of that port where its force can not be brought to bear.

An obstruction to passage.

(physiology) Interference with transmission of a physiological signal, or a physiological reaction.

To raise a blockade. See under Raise.

verb

Blockade v. t. (past & past part. blockaded; pres. part. blockading)

To shut up, as a town or fortress, by investing it with troops or vessels or war for the purpose of preventing ingress or egress, or the introduction of supplies. See note under Blockade, n. "Blockaded the place by sea."

Hence, to shut in so as to prevent egress. "Till storm and driving ice blockade him there."

To obstruct entrance to or egress from. "Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door."

See images of 'Blockade'

Etymology of 'Blockade'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Blockade" Quotes from Famous Books

... impart a great deal of astonishing information—of the German advance on Petrograd, the invasion of Egypt, the extermination of the Balkan Expedition, the complete blockade of England, the decimation of the British ...

— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)

... embark on board the sloop Pizarro,* (* According to the Spanish nomenclature, the Pizarro was a light frigate (fragata lijera).) which was to sail in company with the Alcudia, the packet-boat of the month of May, which, on account of the blockade, had been detained three weeks in the port. Senor Clavijo ordered the necessary arrangements to be made on board the sloop for placing our instruments, and the captain of the Pizarro received orders to stop at Teneriffe, as long as we should judge necessary to enable us to visit the port of Orotava, ...

— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... home?" he asked. (A slight blockade below impeded, momentarily, the "taxi". Mr. Heatherbloom raised his handkerchief ...

— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... Germany has made her maximum effort. If she couldn't beat us when she took the field equipped to the last button she never can. By spring we'll be organized. France and England on the west front. The Russian steam roller on the east. The fleet maintaining the blockade. They can't stand the pressure. It isn't possible. The Hun—confound him—will blow up with a loud bang about next July. That's Ned's say-so, and these line officers are pretty conservative as a rule. War's their business, ...

— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... calamities. There had, from the start, been an anti-war party in the North, and in certain localities South there were large numbers of loyal men, many of whom joined the Union Army. The South was becoming exhausted in men and means. The blockade had become so efficient as to render it almost impossible for the Confederate authorities to get foreign supplies. It seemed to unprejudiced observers that the Confederacy must soon collapse. Sherman ...

— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

More quotes...