noun
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the act of stopping or the state of being stopped
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something that stops or blocks
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a deduction of money, as from pay
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an organized cessation of work, as during a strike
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of stoppage
late Middle English word dating back to 1400–50; see origin at stop, -age
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.
See Examples For:
It took two goals in the final 10 minutes, including one in stoppage time, for his new team to manage a 2-1 victory over Bournemouth.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
Hennessy, who turns 22 on 20 October, stopped Aurora de Persio in May for her second stoppage win in nine bouts.
From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026
Itauma impressed in a fifth-round stoppage of American Jermaine Franklin in Manchester in March and stopped Briton Dillian Whyte in one round in August 2025.
From BBC ● Aug. 4, 2026
The stoppage is the third office-to-residential conversion halted since the former Pfizer headquarters neared partial collapse.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
But “standard” by then included some remarkable safety technology, like an antilock braking system, which allowed for swifter stoppage time and had first been developed in the 1960s.
From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel
They include food shortages, water contamination, plumbing stoppages, lost mail, and mental health decay, spurring some crew members to jump ship.
From Slate ● Aug. 19, 2026
But, Wainwright added, the prospect of stoppages for thunderstorms in the evening could be advantageous for England, giving them chance to take a break from the effects of the altitude.
From BBC ● Jul. 4, 2026
Football, basketball and baseball are all shot through with timeouts and stoppages, ends of innings and changes of possession.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026
Strike activity has picked up, too—in each of the past three years, there have been upward of 30 work stoppages involving 1,000 or more employees, according to the Labor Department, the most since the mid-1990s.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
Before 1919 was over, in an unprecedented demonstration of labor unrest, there would be thirty-six hundred work stoppages involving four million workers or one-fifth of the nation’s labor force.
From "1919 The Year That Changed America" by Martin W. Sandler
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
