the.com/bloc

means A group of countries, parties, or people who band together and act as one to pool their bargaining power.

from Borrowed from French 'bloc,' meaning a block or lump of something solid — like a block of stone or wood. The political sense (a unified group acting together) emerged in French political language and spread into English, keeping the core image intact: separate pieces fused into one solid mass, hard to chip away at.