choke upverb

• 1

  To (temporarily) lose one's power of speech, because of strong emotion.

  • Hearing that song always makes me choke up.
  • The point overlooking the sea has beautiful scenery. It's over that away. Such a beautiful place gets me all choked up.
• 2

  To cause (a person) temporarily to lose the power of speech, because of strong emotion.

  • It chokes me up to think about how he died.
• 3

  To cease talking.

• 4

  To block up; to cause something to be blocked.

  • The bodies choked up the entrance, barring the egress of those behind.
  • "[…] All the leading entrances to the station, all the platforms within and all the passages without, were absolutely choked up with men and women and children, and hundreds of them could not get away until midnight."
• 5

  ball-gamesbaseballgamesTo hold the bat higher (farther from the knob) than is normal.