cease and desist

Idioms  

1. 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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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

cease and desist

Last month, Dawn Buckingham, who leads the General Land Office, sent a cease and desist letter to CBP and a federal contractor she said had illegally cleared GLO-owned land in Presidio County.

From Salon ● Aug. 24, 2026

He was given a cease and desist notice and details about previous court cases which had seen defendants receiving custodial sentences.

From BBC ● Jun. 2, 2026

According to the 30-year-old singer's legal team, Samsung apparently ignored "repeated demands" to "cease and desist from infringing on her rights".

From BBC ● May 10, 2026

“This is the first page of the cease and desist letter from Swalwell’s team — it has has been shared with permission from the recipient,” she wrote on social media.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 10, 2026

One day he lit into Vanguard’s index funds and almost instantly received a cease and desist order from Vanguard’s attorneys.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis