<p><strong>Verb (used with object)</strong></p><ul><li>to cease from, leave off, or discontinue: to stop running.</li><li>to cause to cease; put an end to: to stop noise in the street.</li><li>to interrupt, arrest, or check (a course, proceeding, process, etc.): Stop your work just a minute.</li><li>to cut off, intercept, or withhold: to stop supplies.</li><li>to restrain, hinder, or prevent (usually followed by from): I couldn't stop him from going.</li><li>to prevent from proceeding, acting, operating, continuing, etc.: to stop a speaker; to stop a car.</li><li>to block, obstruct, or close (a passageway, channel, opening, duct, etc.) (usually followed by up): He stopped up the sink with a paper towel.</li><li>to fill the hole or holes in (a wall, a decayed tooth, etc.).</li><li>to close (a container, tube, etc.) with a cork, plug, bung, or the like.</li><li>to close the external orifice of (the ears, nose, mouth, etc.).</li><li>to check (a stroke, blow, etc.); parry; ward off.</li><li>to defeat (an opposing player or team): The Browns stopped the Colts.</li><li>to defeat by a knockout or technical knockout: Louis stopped Conn in the 13th round.</li><li>to notify a bank to refuse payment of (a check) upon presentation.</li><li>to have an honor card and a sufficient number of protecting cards to keep an opponent from continuing to win in (a suit).</li><li>to close (a fingerhole) in order to produce a particular note from a wind instrument.</li><li>to press down (a string of a violin, viola, etc.) in order to alter the pitch of the tone produced from it.</li><li>to produce (a particular note) by so doing.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb (used without object)</strong></p><ul><li>to come to a stand, as in a course or journey; halt.</li><li>to cease moving, proceeding, speaking, acting, operating, etc.; to pause; desist.</li><li>to halt for a brief visit (often followed by at, in, or by): He is stopping at the best hotel in town.</li><li>to make a brief visit on one's way elsewhere: I'll stop by on my way home.</li></ul><p><strong>Noun</strong></p><ul><li>the act of stopping.</li><li>a cessation or arrest of movement, action, operation, etc.; end: The noise came to a stop.</li><li>a stay or sojourn made at a place, as in the course of a journey: Above all, he enjoyed his stop in Trieste.</li><li>a place where trains or other vehicles halt to take on and discharge passengers: Is this a bus stop?</li><li>a closure or filling up, as of a hole.</li><li>a blocking or obstructing, as of a passage or channel.</li><li>a plug or other stopper for an opening.</li><li>an obstacle, impediment, or hindrance.</li><li>any piece or device that serves to check or control movement or action in a mechanism.</li><li>a feature terminating a molding or chamfer.</li><li>an order to refuse payment of a check.</li><li>the act of closing a fingerhole or pressing a string of an instrument in order to produce a particular note.</li><li>a device or contrivance, as on an instrument, for accomplishing this.</li><li>(in an organ) a graduated set of pipes of the same kind and giving tones of the same quality.</li><li>a knob or handle that is drawn out or pushed back to permit or prevent the sounding of such a set of pipes or to control some other part of the organ.</li><li>(in a reed organ) a group of reeds functioning like a pipe-organ stop.</li><li>an individual defensive play or act that prevents an opponent or opposing team from scoring, advancing, or gaining an advantage, as a catch in baseball, a tackle in football, or the deflection of a shot in hockey.</li><li>a piece of small line used to lash or fasten something, as a furled sail.</li><li>an articulation that interrupts the flow of air from the lungs.</li><li>a consonant sound characterized by stop articulation, as p, b, t, d, k, and g.</li></ul><p><strong>Verb Phrase</strong></p><ul><li>(on a camera) to reduce (the diaphragm opening of a lens).</li><li>to make a brief, incidental visit: If you're in town, be sure to stop in.</li><li>to halt for a brief stay at some point on the way elsewhere: On the way to Rome we stopped off at Florence.</li><li>to stop briefly in the course of a journey: Many motorists were forced to stop over in that town because of floods.</li><li>to mask (certain areas of an etching plate, photographic negative, etc.) with varnish, paper, or the like, to prevent their being etched, printed, etc.</li><li>to withdraw temporarily from school: Most of the students who stop out eventually return to get their degrees.</li></ul>