cease and desist

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Stop, leave off doing something, as in: “Bliss excavated at least once on his own and Dr. Brand ... told him to cease and desist” (Douglas Preston quoting Frank Hibben, The New Yorker, June 12, 1995). This legal term is a redundancy, since cease and desist mean virtually the same thing, but often appears in legal documents to avoid possible misinterpretation. [c. 1920]

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QUIZ YOURSELF ON "WAS" VS. "WERE"!

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Question 1 of 7

“Was” is used for the indicative past tense of “to be,” and “were” is only used for the subjunctive past tense.

true

false

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Words nearby cease and desist

Ce, CEA, ceanothus, Ceará, cease, cease and desist, cease-and-desist order, ceased, cease-fire, ceaseless, Ceauşescu

How to use cease and desist in a sentence

As an example of good science-and-society policymaking, the history of fluoride may be more of a cautionary tale.
Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST
As this list shows, punishments typically run to a short-ish jail sentence and/or a moderately hefty fine.
In Defense of Blasphemy|Michael Tomasky|January 9, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Yes, Byrd—dead four-and-a-half years now—was a Kleagle in the Ku Klux Klan.
Steve Scalise and the Right’s Ridiculous Racial Blame Game|Michael Tomasky|January 2, 2015|DAILY BEAST
Slowly, slowly, dance classes may cease to be such secret and guilty pleasures in Iran.
Iran’s Becoming a Footloose Nation as Dance Lessons Spread|IranWire|January 2, 2015|DAILY BEAST

Later that night, that same black-and-red banner would be seen again—in the column of marchers chanting for dead cops.
The Monsters Who Screamed for Dead Cops|Jacob Siegel|December 23, 2014|DAILY BEAST
The bear watched him narrowly with its wicked little eyes, though it did not see fit to cease its paw-licking.
The Giant of the North|R.M. Ballantyne
She also practises etching, pen-and-ink drawing, as well as crayon and water-color sketching.
Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D.|Clara Erskine Clement
As soon as he had seen his mother, he would set off again, and never cease searching till he had found either Ramona or her grave.
Ramona|Helen Hunt Jackson
No law of that country must exceed in words the number of letters in their alphabet, which consists only in two-and-twenty.
Gulliver's Travels|Jonathan Swift
It was a life full of freedom, and I shall never cease to be grateful for it, but I must go home soon and look after my affairs.
Ancestors|Gertrude Atherton