block out
See also: blockout
English
Pronunciation
Audio (AU): (file)
Verb
block out (third-person singular simple present blocks out, present participle blocking out, simple past and past participle blocked out)
- (transitive) to prevent from entering or penetrating.
- High-factor suncream blocks out the sun's rays.
- 2019 October 23, Pip Dunn, “The next king of Scotland”, in Rail, page 51:
- First Class has curtains throughout, and they are sturdy, dark and block out the light very well.
- (idiomatic, transitive) to prevent (a thought) from entering one's mind.
- After finding out she had terminal cancer, she tried to block out any thoughts of her own mortality.
- (transitive) to cover something, so as to make it impossible to see.
- (transitive) to begin to reduce to shape; to mark out roughly; to lay out.
- to block out a plan