stop

stop vb 1 Stop, cease, quit, discontinue, desist are comparable when they mean to suspend or cause to suspend activity.

Stop applies primarily to action or progress or to what is thought of as moving or progressing; cease applies primarily to states and conditions or to what is thought of as being or as having existence; thus, a train stops but does not cease; the noise it makes both stops and ceases; one stops a car but may cease driving a car; one stops work on a book but ceases one's efforts to perfect its style

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when I have fears that I may cease to be— Keats

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Stop frequently connotes a sudden or definite, cease a gradual suspension of activity

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stop a quarrel

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cease quarreling

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I gave commands; then all smiles stopped together— Browning

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you hear the grating roar . . . begin, and cease, and then again begin— Arnold

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Quit (see also GO) may suggest finality in ceasing an activity, sometimes with an implication of accepting frustration or failure

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he quit coming

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quit smoking

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since he has quit Party work, he has studied a great deal— Mailer

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a few came, straggling and reluctant and not at all constant: most quit after the first day— Pynchon

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Discontinue implies the suspension of some activity, especially one that has become a form of occupation or employment or is a practice or habit

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discontinue a correspondence

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discontinue a subscription to a journal

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she found it necessary to discontinue her studies— Current Biog.

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the English abstracts that were formerly printed in Russian technical periodicals have been discontinued— Martin Gardner

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Desist usually stresses forbearance or restraint as the motive for stopping or ceasing but it may imply the futility of one's efforts

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desist from further questioning

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an order . . . requiring such person ... to cease and desist from the violation of the law so charged— U. S. Code

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Paul desisted, because he had read in the newspaper satirical remarks about initial-carvers, who could find no other road to immortality— D. H. Lawrence

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he had made two attempts to shave but his hand had been so unsteady that he had been obliged to desist— Joyce

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Analogous words: *arrest, check, interrupt: intermit, suspend, stay, *defer, postpone: *frustrate, thwart, foil, balk, circumvent

Contrasted words: start, *begin, commence, initiate: *go, depart, leave

2 stay, put up, lodge, sojourn, *reside, live, dwell