BLOCKADE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Blockade

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/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."

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Etymology of 'Blockade'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Blockade" Quotes from Famous Books

... to Germany by the coffee trade before the war. German capital was heavily invested in coffee plantations; German houses had branches in the principal cities; and German ships regularly served the chief ports. Accordingly, when the blockade became effective, these countries were placed in a difficult position. But fortunately for them, a special effort had been made shortly before by Pacific-coast interests in the United States to divert a part of the coffee trade to San Francisco[313] The market to the east being shut off, these ...

— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers

... her pride. Her moral force is only the confidence which her material force inspires in her. And this means that in this respect she is living on reserves without means of replenishment. Even before England had commenced to blockade her coasts she had blockaded herself morally, in isolating herself from every ideal capable of giving her ...

— The Meaning of the War - Life & Matter in Conflict • Henri Bergson

... whole generations of Woodwards. Jake Cohen, a pedlar, who with marevelous tact had fitted himself to the conditions of life and society in the moutains, and who was supposed to have some sort of connection with the traffice in "blockade" whisky, gravely inquired of Squire Pleasants if the new-comer had left any message ...

— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris

... convention. She found herself isolated and unsupported, and left to oppose her own proper forces and means of defence, to an army of sixty thousand men, and to the numerous Jacobins contained within her own walls. About the end of July, after a lapse of an interval of two months, a regular blockade was formed around the city, and in the first week of August, hostilities took place. The besieging army was directed in its military character by general Kellerman, who, with other distinguished soldiers, had now began to hold an eminent rank in the republican armies. But for ...

— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... Federal officers crossed the enemy's lines with him, where he was met by one private soldier, and after some hours taken into the presence of the commander. General Bragg received him very kindly at Shelbyville, and allowed him to report on parole at Wilmington, North Carolina. There he took a blockade runner for Nassau, where he found a ...

— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

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