Definition of "lock"

"Give me the key," said my mother; and though the lock was very stiff, she had turned it and thrown back the lid in a twinkling.

1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883

We tiptoed into the house, up the stairs and along the hall into the room where the Professor had been spending so much of his time. 'Twas locked, of course, but the Deacon man got a big bunch of keys out of his pocket and commenced to putter with the lock.

1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter XIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company

[T]he application must first acquire a lock on a file or a portion of a file before reading data and modifying it.

2005, Karl Kopper, The Linux Enterprise Cluster

Here the canal came to a check, ending abruptly with a large lock.

1846, William Makepeace Thackeray, Notes of a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo

"I never saw such a gun in my life," replied poor Winkle, looking at the lock, as if that would do any good.

1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the chapter name)”, in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1837

Even though he had not yet done so, Jack felt he had a lock on the game.

2003, Charley Rosen, The Wizard of Odds

Brian thinks she's a lock to get a scholarship somewhere.

2004, Avery Corman, A perfect divorce

Ashton only had to wait three minutes for his second try, lock Louis Deacon setting it up with a rollocking line-break, before Romania got on the scoreboard courtesy of a penalty from fly-half Marin Danut Dumbrava.

2011 September 24, Ben Dirs, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 67-3 Romania”, in BBC Sport

[O]n may of his lecture days I have seen all Albemarle Street closed by a "lock" of carriages, filled with women of distinction, until the servants of the Institution or their own footmen advanced to the carriage-doors with the intelligence that Mr. Coleridge had been suddenly taken ill.

1834 September–November; 1835 January, “Samuel Taylor Coleridge”, in Autobiographic Sketches: With Recollections of the Lakes (De Quincey’s Works; II), London: James Hogg & Sons, page 207

Sergestus, eager with his beak to press / Betwixt the rival galley and the rock, / Shuts up the unwieldy Centaur in the lock

1697, Virgil, “The Fifth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]

They must be also practis'd in all the Locks and Gripes of Wrestling

, [John Milton], Of Education. To Master Samuel Hartlib, [London: […] Thomas Underhill and/or Thomas Johnson]

We tiptoed into the house, up the stairs and along the hall into the room where the Professor had been spending so much of his time. 'Twas locked, of course, but the Deacon man got a big bunch of keys out of his pocket and commenced to putter with the lock.

1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 13, in Mr. Pratt's Patients

Please don't disappoint me - you are female, aren't you? I have a lingering suspicion that you are 17 stone and lock for Tarankai.

1980, Ken Berry, chapter 14, in First Offender, Auckland: Collins, page 117

Baſſ. […] Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth, For the foure windes blow in from euery coaſt Renowned ſutors, and her ſunny locks Hang on her temples like a golden fleece, Which makes her ſeat of Belmont Cholchos-'| ſtrond, And many Iaſons come in queſt of her.

c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i], page 164

If I consent to burn them, will you promise faithfully neither to send nor receive a letter again, nor a book (for I perceive you have sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings, nor playthings?

1847 December, Ellis Bell [pseudonym; Emily Brontë], Wuthering Heights, volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Thomas Cautley Newby, […]