Noun

(en noun)

A substantial, often approximately cuboid, piece of any substance.

*

You young porkers who are sitting in front of me, every one of you will scream your lives out at the block within a year.

A block of ice.

A block of stone.

Anne Boleyn placed her head on the block and awaited her execution.

A group of urban lots of property, several acres in extent, not crossed by public streets.

I'm going for a walk around the block .

A residential building consisting of flats.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=He turned back to the scene before him and the enormous new block' of council dwellings. The design was some way after Corbusier but the ' block was built up on plinths and resembled an Atlantic liner swimming diagonally across the site.}}

A block of flats.

The distance from one street to another in a city that is built (approximately) to a grid pattern.

The place you are looking for is two long blocks''' east and one short '''block north.

(slang) The human head.

I'll knock your block off.

A wig block: a simplified head model upon which wigs are worn.

* 1851 , (Herman Melville), (Moby Dick) ,

Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, for a block , I settled my own and comrade’s bill; using, however, my comrade’s money.

A mould on which hats, bonnets, etc., are shaped.

* Shakespeare

He wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat; it ever changes with the next block .

A set of sheets (of paper) joined together at one end.

A block of 100 tickets.

(computing) A logical data storage unit containing one or more physical sectors (see cluster).

(computing) A region of code in a program that acts as a single unit, such as a function or loop.

(cryptography) A fixed-length group of bits making up part of a message.

(rigging) A case with one or more sheaves/pulleys, used with ropes to increase or redirect force, for example, as part of the rigging of a sailing ship.

(chemistry) A portion of a macromolecule, comprising many units, that has at least one feature not present in adjacent portions.

Something that prevents something from passing (see blockage).

There's a block in the pipe that means the water can't get through.

(sports) An action to interfere with the movement of an opposing player or of the object of play (ball, puck).

* {{quote-news, year=2011

, date=February 12 , author=Oliver Brett , title=Sunderland 1–2 Tottenham , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=The match proved an unedifying spectacle until Spurs won a corner following their first move of real quality, John Mensah making an important block with Jermain Defoe poised to strike. }}

(cricket) A shot played by holding the bat vertically in the path of the ball, so that it loses momentum and drops to the ground.

(volleyball) A defensive play by one or more players meant to deflect a spiked ball back to the hitter’s court.

(philately) A joined group of four (or in some cases nine) postage stamps, forming a roughly square shape.

A section of split logs used as fuel.

(UK) Solitary confinement.

A cellblock.

(falconry) The perch on which a bird of prey is kept.

(printing, dated) A piece of hard wood on which a stereotype or electrotype plate is mounted.

(obsolete) A blockhead; a stupid fellow; a dolt.

* Shakespeare

What a block art thou!

A section of a railroad where the block system is used.

Noun

(en noun)

Model, example.

# Something from which a copy is made; a model or outline.

#* 1923 , ‘President Wilson’, Time , 18 Jun 1923:

There is no reason why all colleges and universities should be cut to the same pattern .

# Someone or something seen as an example to be imitated; an exemplar.

#* 1946 , Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy , I.16:

The Platonic Socrates was a pattern to subsequent philosophers for many ages.

#

#

# A representative example.

# (US) The material needed to make a piece of clothing.

# (textiles) The paper or cardboard template from which the parts of a garment are traced onto fabric prior to cutting out and assembling.

# (metalworking, dated) A full-sized model around which a mould of sand is made, to receive the melted metal. It is usually made of wood and in several parts, so as to be removed from the mould without damage.

# (computing) A text string containing wildcards, used for matching.

There were no files matching the pattern *.txt.

Decorative arrangement.

# A design, motif or decoration, especially formed from regular repeated elements.

#* 2003 , Valentino, ‘Is there a future in fashion's past?’, Time , 5 Feb 2003:

On my way to work the other day, I stopped at a church in Rome and saw a painting of the Madonna. The subtle pattern of blues and golds in the embroidery of her dress was so amazing that I used it to design a new evening dress for my haute couture.

# A naturally-occurring or random arrangement of shapes, colours etc. which have a regular or decorative effect.

#* 2011 , Rachel Cooke, The Observer , 19 Jun 2011:

He lifted the entire joint or fowl up into the air, speared on a carving fork, and sliced pieces off it so that they fell on the plate below in perfectly organised patterns .

# The given spread, range etc. of shot fired from a gun.

# A particular sequence of events, facts etc. which can be understood, used to predict the future, or seen to have a mathematical, geometric, statistical etc. relationship.

#* 1980 , ‘Shifting Targets’, Time , 6 Oct 1980:

The three killings pointed to an ugly new shift in the enduring pattern of violence in Northern Ireland: the mostly Protestant Ulster police, or those suspected of affiliation with them, have become more prominent targets for the I.R.A. than the British troops.

#* 2003 , Kate Hudson, The Guardian , 14 Aug 2003:

Look again at how the US and its allies behaved then, and the pattern is unmistakable.

# (linguistics) An intelligible arrangement in a given area of language.