Blockage

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An obstruction that prevents normal flow or movement through a passage, tube, or channel
2. A condition characterized by an impediment that hinders the usual passage of fluids, air, or movement in various contexts
3. The presence of an obstruction that limits or stops the normal operation or flow within a physical space or system

Etymology: The word is a simple formation: "block" with the suffix "-age" added to it. "Block" itself came into English from Old French "bloc" (a log or lump of wood), and it took on its sense of an obstacle or a solid mass that stops passage. The suffix "-age" has a long road behind it. It passed from Latin "-aticum", which formed nouns expressing an action, a collection, or a charge, into Old French, and reached English in Middle English. English then attached it freely to native and borrowed bases, and "blockage" is one of the results. The suffix's sense is the key to the noun. "-age" often names a result, a state, or a collective condition, as in "wreckage" or "drainage," so "blockage" describes the condition of being blocked, or the obstruction that such a condition produces. The meaning therefore moved from the act of blocking toward the stopped passage itself, which is how the word is used today in plumbing and medicine.

Synonyms: obstruction, impediment

Antonyms: access, passage