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Strangle vs Choke - What's the difference?

strangle | choke |

In transitive terms the difference between strangle and choke

is that strangle is to stifle or suppress an action while choke is to prevent someone from breathing by strangling or filling the windpipe.

In intransitive terms the difference between strangle and choke

is that strangle is to be stifled, choked, or suffocated in any manner while choke is to perform badly at a crucial stage of a competition because one is nervous, especially when one is winning.

As a noun choke is

a control on a carburetor to adjust the air/fuel mixture when the engine is cold.

strangle

English

Verb

(strangl)
  • To kill someone by squeezing the throat so as to cut off the oxygen supply; to choke, suffocate or throttle.
  • He strangled his wife and dissolved the body in acid.
  • To stifle or suppress an action.
  • She strangled a scream.
  • To be killed by strangulation, or become strangled.
  • The cat slipped from the branch and strangled on its bell-collar.
  • To be stifled, choked, or suffocated in any manner.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Shall I not then be stifled in the vault, And there die strangled ere my Romeo comes?

    See also

    * asphyxiate * choke * querk * suffocate * throttle

    choke

    English

    Alternative forms

    * (l) (obsolete) * (l) (obsolete) * (l) (dialectal)

    Verb

    (chok)
  • To be unable to breathe because of obstruction of the windpipe, for instance food or other objects that go down the wrong way.
  • To prevent someone from breathing by strangling or filling the windpipe.
  • * Shakespeare
  • With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder.
  • To obstruct by filling up or clogging any passage; to block up.
  • to choke a cave passage with boulders and mud
    (Addison)
  • To hinder or check, as growth, expansion, progress, etc.; to stifle.
  • * Dryden
  • Oats and darnel choke the rising corn.
  • (intransitive, fluid mechanics, of a duct) to reach a condition of maximum flowrate, due to the flow at the narrowest point of the duct becoming sonic (Ma = 1).
  • To perform badly at a crucial stage of a competition because one is nervous, especially when one is winning.
  • To move one's fingers very close to the tip of a pencil, brush or other art tool.
  • To be checked, as if by choking; to stick.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • The words choked in his throat.
  • To affect with a sense of strangulation by passion or strong feeling.
  • * Jonathan Swift
  • I was choked at this word.
  • To make a choke, as in a cartridge, or in the bore of the barrel of a shotgun.
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • A control on a carburetor to adjust the air/fuel mixture when the engine is cold.
  • (sports) In wrestling, karate (etc.), a type of hold that can result in strangulation.
  • A constriction at the muzzle end of a shotgun barrel which affects the spread of the shot.
  • A partial or complete blockage (of boulders, mud, etc.) in a cave passage.
  • The mass of immature florets in the centre of the bud of an artichoke.
  • Derived terms

    * choker * choke collar * unchoke

    See also

    * strangle English ergative verbs