choke up
verb
Simple meaning
To lose one's power of speech, because of strong emotion.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
chohkuhpSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtʃoʊˈkʌp
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
intransitive
To (temporarily) lose one's power of speech, because of strong emotion.
intransitiveoften imperative
To cease talking.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To (temporarily) lose one's power of speech, because of strong emotion.
Used this way, choke up is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.