be chock-a-block

1. To be squeezed or jammed closely together. So many people wanted to see the show that we were chock-a-block inside the venue. I know we're all chock-a-block right now, but you've got to push through the crowds to get up to the stage! Because of all the delays this morning, tons of commuters are chock-a-block inside the train station.

2. To be very full or tightly packed. Your office is chock-a-block with books and boxes. How do you even move around in here! The restaurant has been chock-a-block with guests all day. I'm sure the mall is chock-a-block today, it's Christmas Eve!

3. By extension, to be very busy; to be completely filled or engaged (with something). Every day of our vacation was chock-a-block with fun activities. Now that business has started to pick up, we've been chock-a-block with orders. When you have kids, every Saturday is just chock-a-block with sports, activities, and birthday parties. There's no such thing as a day off anymore!

chock-a-block, to be

Also, chock-full. To be very full, tightly jammed together. It was originally a nineteenth-century nautical term, describing the blocks of a tackle drawn so close that they touched. In time it was transferred to objects, people—just about anything very crowded. W. Somerset Maugham used it, “The city’s inns were chock-a-block and men were sleeping three, four and five to a bed” (Then and Now, 1946). The synonymous “chock-full” is much older, dating from the fifteenth century, and actually may be used more often, in such locutions as, “Her paper was chock-full of typos.”