Blockade

(blok-ad'.) [From It. bloc care, to block up.] (Inter. Law.) The right to exclude neutrals from an enemy's port, only justifiable in cases where it can be effectually maintained, and after an official note to such effect has been given.-(Mil.) The blocking up, or beleaguering of a place, by forming a cordon of troops or ve els of war around it, or by closing all the avenues leading to it, to keep supplies of men and material of war, provisions, ., from entering, and by such means starving it out to compel its surrender, without making any regular attack:- the term, in modern usage, is more generally confined to the watching the avenues of a port by ships of war, and so cutting off communication by sea. [s. 98]