block out something

block | Business English

block
verb[ T ]
uk /blɒk/us
to decide officially to stop something from happening or continuing:
The federal government's fight to block a bankruptcy settlement was rejected by the Supreme Court.
block a bid/deal/mergerThe Federal Trade Commission said it planned to block the merger.
BANKING
if a bank blocks someone's account, they make it impossible for that person to remove money from it:
Accounts of all suspected terrorists have been blocked.
COMMUNICATIONS
to stop emails, text messages, phone calls, etc. from a particular person:
The new phone allows users to block messages from particular senders.
block
noun[ C ]
uk /blɒk/us
STOCK MARKET
a large number of shares that are sold by one organization at a particular time:
Deutsche Bank placed a block of six million shares at 781p.
The shares were sold on the Toronto Stock Exchange in a block trade.
ECONOMICS
an official decision to stop something happening or continuing:
a block on sthLobbyists are calling for a block on bonuses to rail operators while their safety record is so poor.
put/remove a block on sthThe government has put a block on all arms sales to the country.
PROPERTY
a building consisting of several apartments, offices, etc.:
There are four apartments in each block.
a block of office buildings
 on the blockUS
available to buy:
She offers a beginner's guide to the newest pensions on the block.
A few more newspapers may go on the block before the end of the year.
 lay your head/neck on the block
to risk a bad thing happening to you, for example getting a bad reputation, by doing something or helping someone:
Agency executives willing to lay their heads on the block in a pure results-driven agreement would be very brave.

Examples of block

block
Another building block for such planning operations in the brain may be the type of short-term memory in which the prefrontal cortex is involved.
On the other hand, they sought to incorporate the philosophical definition of elements as the building blocks of the universe.
Computations for nonlinear force driven plasma blocks by picosecond laser pulses for fusion.
These blocks will be returned after extraction of small diameter cores of tissue for the production of tissue micro-arrays.
So far, so good; but a few hours later, when the assistant returns she notices that the sink is blocked.
0, 1 or 2), he suggested replacing two blocks with nine plots by six blocks with three.
Thus, an enormous block on a branch defined by a right endpoint can be essentially replaced by large subblocks corresponding to left endpoints.
It is true that some can be recovered from the inter-block analysis, but not very much.
Moreover, cold temperatures are required to overcome the physiological block present in the embryos of seeds when freshly ripe.
Subjects took between 13 and 15 blocks in this phase.
Lamberts (2000) didn't stop his subjects, and they took an average of 38 blocks to learn these categories.
The ar ticle proposes a bidirectional search algorithm for compositional synthesis of designs using a database of building blocks.
Considering only those building blocks that are useful in solving a given problem should also improve the efficiency of synthesis.
A synthesis procedure has two par ts: a database of building blocks and an algorithm that uses this database for synthesis.
One of the major stumbling blocks may be the availability of sufficient capital to fund the company's start up operations.
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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.

Collocations withblock

block

These are words often used in combination with block.

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

adjacent block
In the model under consideration, the width of the fissure is much smaller than the dimension of the adjacent block.
atrioventricular block
His atrioventricular conduction was intact until 9 years of age, after which time he developed progressive atrioventricular block.
basic block
Many frame allocations are in the same (extended) basicblock as other non-frame allocations.
These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.
See all collocations with block