stop short
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.11 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
1
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To come to a sudden and unexpected stop, particularly while speaking or driving a vehicle.
Example Sentences
- "He had only taken a step forward into the room when he again stopped short to exclaim."
- "Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear."
- "He stopped short of saying the story was true but accused the palace of lying when they "squashed" it."
- "Thirteen people were injured in August 1957 when this Bristol freighter skidded on the runway at Southend Airport when landing with a flight from Calais. It ploughed through the boundary fence, but thankfully stopped short of the railway and the 1,500V overhead wires. A tripwire was installed on this section of Shenfield-Southend line to warn train drivers of instances such as this."
- "He, too, had a split beard of the same square cut, a cleft in his chin, and a squint. His hair, his eyes, in a loose way his whole aspect, resembled the face of the khan.>br>The resemblance stopped short in the matter of the soul; for the fellow looked dreamy and kind."