gridlock

[grid-lok] /ˈgrɪdˌlɒk/
noun
1.
the stoppage of free vehicular movement in an urban area because key intersections are blocked by traffic.
2.
the blocking of an intersection by vehicular traffic entering the intersection but unable to pass through it.
3.
any situation in which nothing can move or proceed in any direction:
a financial gridlock due to high interest rates.
Origin
1975-80, Americanism; grid + lock1
Related forms
gridlocked, adjective
Examples from the web for gridlock
  • The prospect of two years of gridlock and troublemaking is worrying.
  • The spread of mobile phones has only worsened telephone gridlock.
  • Too often, anger on one side leads to guilt and defensiveness on the other, resulting in sibling gridlock.
  • It's a place of constant gridlock and giant holes in the sidewalks.
  • Last year's gridlock prompted airlines and the government to take numerous steps to ease congestion.
  • Struggling families and workers want to end the gridlock and get our economy moving.
  • Flying cars might have seemed cool, but there wasn't enough gridlock to feed an urgency to build one.
  • Yet that theme seems but a dream given the gridlock he has been unable to change.
  • With the prospect of gridlock at home, a president naturally turns abroad.
  • And an opposition that never compromises dooms the nation to gridlock.
British Dictionary definitions for gridlock

gridlock

/ˈɡrɪdˌlɒk/
noun
1.
obstruction of urban traffic caused by queues of vehicles forming across junctions and causing further queues to form in the intersecting streets
2.
a point in a dispute at which no agreement can be reached; deadlock: political gridlock
verb
3.
(transitive) (of traffic) to block or obstruct (an area)
Word Origin and History for gridlock

1980 (n.); 1987 (v.); from grid + lock. Related: Gridlocked; gridlocking.

Slang definitions & phrases for gridlock

gridlock

noun

A blockage; paralysis: Until the emotional and psychological gridlock over the Federal deficit is broken

[1980+; fr the traffic term designating a total blockage of traffic caused by cars stopping in intersections behind other stopped cars and blocking traffic on the intersecting street]