choking

Etymology

noun

1. 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. 1988, American Academy of Pediatrics, Policy Reference Guide, page 150
   The study found that 29 percent of nonfood-related chokings were caused by latex balloons. 1998, Christina Elston, Safe and Secure: The Loving Parent's Guide to Child Safety, page 248
   Choking occurs when the respiratory passage in the throat or windpipe is blocked. 2001, Mayo Clinic Guide to Self-care, page 4
2. The act of coughing when a person finds it difficult to breath.
   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. 1838, Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, page 98
   The chokings, which now always succeed every epileptic sleep, are violent beyond description, and last a long time. 1848, William Harcourt Ranking, Charles Bland Radcliffe, William Domett Stone, The Half-yearly Abstract of the Medical Sciences, page 40
   "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. 1853, The Zoist, page 127
3. 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. 1966, Reports of Cases in Law and Equity Determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa, page 933
   This particular man was a small, wiry , athletic Negro who had confessed to many chokings and rapings of young women. 1972, Burton M. Atkins, Henry R. Glick, Prisons, Protest, and Politics, page 52
   Judges should not decide which police chokings are acceptable, and which are not, based on Orwellian newspeak. 2016, California. Supreme Court. Records and Briefs

verb

1. present participle and gerund of choke