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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]


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

In October, it sent a cease and desist letter to Perplexity.

From Barron's

Mark Joseph Stern: I think he is begging us to please cease and desist calling them “Kavanaugh stops.”

From Slate

The Writers Guild of America, which also went on strike over issues including AI, praised Disney’s cease and desist letter to Google in an email to members.

From The Wall Street Journal

Some have issued cease and desist orders against prediction market platforms, while others, such as Massachusetts, have sued them.

From Barron's

The Times issued a “cease and desist” notice to Perplexity in October 2024, demanding that it stop accessing and using the media outlet’s content, The Wall Street Journal reported at the time.

From The Wall Street Journal