choke hold

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Conventional morality was no longer a choke hold on dramatic characters, who were allowed to set dangerous new precedents for audiences that may have been easily shocked but were by no means easily deterred.

From Los Angeles Times • May 20, 2025

“I feel like an MMA fighter who keeps getting inflation in a choke hold, waiting for it to tap out, yet it keeps slipping out of my grasp at the last minute,” Waller said.

From Salon • Dec. 3, 2024

It is the sense of familiar territory made surreal, of easiness gradually becoming a choke hold, that gives “Room” its echoing power.

From New York Times • Oct. 24, 2019

Instead, Gadsby holds you in an emotional choke hold through much of the show: if you don’t like her material, you’re one of them.

From The New Yorker • Jul. 22, 2019

They just had to hope that the people in town during the quarantine were tired enough of the mine’s choke hold on them to go along with the scheme.

From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool