Talk:chock full

chock full etymology

False Etymology?

"Chock full" comes from the coopering (barrel making) profession.

When the final head (lid) of the barrel is placed, the top hoop of the barrel must be moved up so the barrel staves will have a bit of "give" and be able to flex apart so the head can fit in place.

After this is done, the top hoop is then driven back down to tighten the barrel, but not before some "chocks" (small bits of wood, almost toothpick sized) would be placed between the hoop and staves themselves, creating a tighter hold so the hoop would take more force to be moved out of place. This process gave the top hoop the nickname of "chock-hoop" and if the barrel was full of whatever it was holding (up to the "chock hoop", it would be referred to as "chock full".

I've been trying to find out who originated this etymology, cited by Amn Johal on Merriam-Webster:chock-full, because it sounds so plausible. It's really difficult to judge because Wiktionary itself does not support the assertion that "chock" in this sense doesn't date back far enough: chock states it stems from the Anglo-Norman, which would certainly be old enough, and in any trade that has to do with seamen, international language is easy to come by and late to make it into print.

It's such a nice etymology that it warrants some work to actually disprove it false, because I so much want it to be true. Maybe someone else has better luck in finding proof? --91.97.104.44 17:00, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

The evidence against this theory is that chock and chuck do not appear in English until the mid-1600s, whereas chokkefulle appears in 1400, choke-full is used by James in 1633, (and chocque-full is used by Smollett in 1751). It's an interesting story, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence for the barrel etymology. The other problem with this story is that the term chock-hoop doesn't seem to be actually used, at least in any books scanned by Google. Dbfirs 19:05, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, not finding any reference to chock-hoops was disappointing. Though I wouldn't really know what the spelling would have been then. --91.97.108.57 03:27, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Eight people liked the story on the website, and it certainly sounds plausible, but I think we have to regard it as folk etymology from British Columbia. Dbfirs 20:45, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

chock-tight

...meaning "very tight", occurs in Dickens but apparently no other author. Equinox ◑ 04:05, 21 December 2018 (UTC)