Other forms: blocks, blocked, blocking
A block is a solid lump with flat sides, or a group of buildings. A block of stone, walk two blocks, a block of flats.
The American city block is a unit of distance as much as a shape, which is why directions there are given in blocks. As a verb it means to obstruct, and blocking somebody online is the modern sense. Note writer's block; and that the word came from a Dutch word for a tree trunk.
1nounblockA solid lump with flat sides.
“The children built a tower from wooden blocks.”
2verbobstructTo obstruct or prevent.
“A fallen tree blocked the road after the storm.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Old French bloc comes from Middle Dutch blok, a tree trunk. The senses of lump, obstruction and city block all follow from it.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰelǵ- — thick plank, beam, pile, prop
Proto-Germanic
*blukką — beam, log
Proto-West Germanic
*blokk
Old Dutch
*blok — log
Middle Dutch
blok — treetrunk
Old French
bloc — log, block
Middle English
blok — log, stump, solid piece
English, today
block
From Middle English blok (“log, stump, solid piece”), from Old French bloc (“log, block”), from Middle Dutch blok (“treetrunk”), from Old Dutch blok (“log”), from Proto-West Germanic blokk, from Proto-Germanic blukką (“beam, log”), from Proto-Indo-European bʰelǵ- (“thick plank, beam, pile, prop”). Cognate with Old Frisian blok, Old Saxon blok, Old High German bloh, bloc (“block”), Old English bolca (“gangway of a ship, plank”), Old Norse bǫlkr (“divider, partition”). More at balk. See also bloc, bulk.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA