Meaning of stop in English

  1. Pronunciation

    /stɑp/

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  1. Verb

    stop

    Etymology

    Old English (for)stoppian ‘block up (an aperture)’, of West Germanic origin; related to German stopfen, from late Latin stuppare‘to stuff’

    Definitions

    1. come to a halt, stop moving

    Examples

    • « the car stopped »
    • « She stopped in front of a store window »

    Antonyms

  2. 2. put an end to a state or an activity

    Examples

    • « Quit teasing your little brother »

    Antonyms

  3. 3. stop from happening or developing

    Examples

    • « Block his election »
    • « Halt the process »
  4. 4. interrupt a trip

    Examples

    • « we stopped at Aunt Mary's house »
    • « they stopped for three days in Florence »
  5. 5. cause to stop

    Examples

    • « stop a car »
    • « stop the thief »

    Antonyms

  6. 6. prevent completion

    Examples

    • « stop the project »
    • « break off the negociations »
  7. 7. hold back, as of a danger or an enemy

    Examples

    • « check the expansion or influence of »
    • « Arrest the downward trend »
    • « Check the growth of communism in Sout East Asia »
    • « Contain the rebel movement »
    • « Turn back the tide of communism »
  8. 8. seize on its way

    Examples

    • « The fighter plane was ordered to intercept an aircraft that had entered the country's airspace »
  9. 9. have an end, in a temporal, spatial, or quantitative sense

    Examples

    • « either spatial or metaphorical »
    • « the bronchioles terminate in a capillary bed »
    • « Your rights stop where you infringe upon the rights of other »
    • « My property ends by the bushes »
    • « The symphony end »

    Antonyms

  10. 10. render unsuitable for passage

    Examples

    • « block the way »
    • « barricade the streets »
    • « stop the busy road »
  11. 11. stop and wait, as if awaiting further instructions or developments

    Examples

    • « Hold on a moment! »

  12. Noun

    stop

    Definitions

    1. the event of something ending

    Examples

    • « it came to a stop at the bottom of the hill »
  13. 2. the act of stopping something

    Examples

    • « the third baseman made some remarkable stops »
    • « his stoppage of the flow resulted in a flood »
  14. 3. a brief stay in the course of a journey

    Examples

    • « they made a stopover to visit their friends »
  15. 4. the state of inactivity following an interruption

    Examples

    • « the negotiations were in arrest »
    • « held them in check »
    • « during the halt he got some lunch »
    • « the momentary stay enabled him to escape the blow »
    • « he spent the entire stop in his seat »
  16. 5. a spot where something halts or pauses

    Examples

    • « his next stop is Atlanta »
  17. 6. a consonant produced by stopping the flow of air at some point and suddenly releasing it

    Examples

    • « his stop consonants are too aspirated »

    Antonyms

  18. 7. a punctuation mark (.) placed at the end of a declarative sentence to indicate a full stop or after abbreviations

    Examples

    • « in England they call a period a stop »
  19. 8. (music) a knob on an organ that is pulled to change the sound quality from the organ pipes

    Examples

    • « the organist pulled out all the stops »
  20. 9. a mechanical device in a camera that controls size of aperture of the lens

    Examples

    • « the new cameras adjust the diaphragm automatically »
  21. 10. a restraint that checks the motion of something

    Examples

    • « he used a book as a stop to hold the door open »
  22. 11. an obstruction in a pipe or tube

    Examples

    • « we had to call a plumber to clear out the blockage in the drainpipe »