bloc

Borrowed from French bloc (“group, block”), ultimately of Old Dutch origin, from Frankish or Proto-West Germanic *blokk, from Proto-Germanic *blukką (“beam, log”). Doublet of block.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /blɒk/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /blɑk/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒk
• Homophone: block

bloc (plural blocs)

1. A group of voters or politicians who share common goals.
   • 2020 May 11, Geoffrey Skelley, Nathaniel Rakich, “Two Special Elections On Tuesday Could Hint At Another Blue Wave In 2020”, in FiveThirtyEight‎^[1], archived from the original on 3 June 2020:

     But a huge bloc of non-Hispanic white residents without bachelor’s degrees — 72 percent of the population age 25 or older — has turned the 7th District into Republican turf.

   • 2025 July 24, Ned Temko, “In Japan, too, voters want their country to be ‘great again’”, in The Christian Science Monitor‎^[2], archived from the original on 27 July 2025:

     How that impacts Asia’s most stable democracy will become clearer only in the weeks ahead. Sunday’s vote was a mid-term election for the less powerful, upper house of the legislature. And the Sanseito party, while surging, is still only the fourth-largest bloc in that chamber.

2. A group of countries acting together for political or economic goals, an alliance.

   military bloc

   trading bloc

   • 2023 August 17, “The BRICS bloc is riven with tensions”, in The Economist‎^[3], →ISSN, archived from the original on 17 August 2023:

     Like the iPod and MySpace, the BRICS bloc is a product of the benign optimism of the 2000s.

• choc-a-bloc

• CLOB, LCBO

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈblɔk]

Borrowed from French bloc.

bloc m (plural blocs)

1. block
2. pad, notebook
3. bloc

• monobloc

Borrowed from English blog.

bloc m (plural blocs)

1. obsolete spelling of blog

• Recommend spelling (by TERMCAT) until 2013, when blog was accepted by the IEC.

• “bloc”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “bloc”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025.
• “bloc” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “bloc” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
• “bloc” in termcat, Centre de Terminologia, 2025.

Inherited from Middle French bloc (“a considerable piece of something heavy, block”), from Old French bloc (“log, block”), from Middle Dutch blok (“treetrunk”), from Old Dutch *blok (“log”), from Frankish or Proto-West Germanic *blokk, from Proto-Germanic *blukką (“beam, log”).

• IPA^(key): /blɔk/

• Audio:

  (file)

bloc m (plural blocs)

1. a block (e.g., of wood)
2. a bloc, an alliance
3. a pad of paper
4. (computing) block (of memory, of code)

• “bloc”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Borrowed from English block or from a Romance language.

bloc m (genitive singular bloic, nominative plural bloic)

1. block

• Ó Dónaill, Niall (1977) “bloc”, in Foclóir Gaeilge–Béarla, Dublin: An Gúm, →ISBN
• Gregory Toner, Sharon Arbuthnot, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, Marie-Luise Theuerkauf, Dagmar Wodtko, editors (2019), “bloc”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

Borrowed from French bloc, German Blockhaus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈblok/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ok

bloc n (plural blocuri)

1. block (a big chunk of solid matter)

   Synonym: bucată

   bloc de gheață ― block of ice

2. a heap or an ensemble of objects of the same type that form a unity

   bloc de desen ― drawing block

3. apartment building

   Synonym: (rare) blochaus

4. (politics) bloc

   Synonym: alianță

• în bloc
• bloc de desen
• bloc motor
• bloc cardiac
• bloc operator

• “bloc”, in DEX online—Dicționare ale limbii române (Dictionaries of the Romanian language) (in Romanian), 2004–2025

Borrowed from French bloc. Doublet of block and bloque.

• IPA^(key): /ˈblok/ [ˈblok]
• Rhymes: -ok
• Syllabification: bloc

bloc m (plural blocs)

1. pad (such as of paper)

• “bloc”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024

Borrowed from English block.

bloc m (plural blociau)

1. block

• bloc fflatiau (“apartment block”)
• grant bloc (“block grant”)