cease

Formsceases, ceasing, ceased

1. 1
   verbformalintransitive

   To come to an end; to stop happening or continuing.

   Hostilities did not cease until the treaty was signed.

   The factory's operations ceased abruptly last winter.

   Similarstop, end, halt, finish, discontinue

   Oppositecontinue, persist, begin, start (entry)

   Note

   Behind it stands Latin cessō, "leave off," a frequentative of cēdō, "go away." That is the same root that gives secede. It came into English through Middle French cesser and keeps a formal ring where everyday speech would simply say stop. Here the thing itself comes to an end, as in his twitching ceased, and no object follows the verb.

2. 2
   verbformaltransitive

   To stop performing or engaging in a particular activity.

   The board voted to cease operations at the aging plant.

   Doctors advised her to cease taking the medication.

   Similarstop, halt, discontinue, desist, terminate

   Oppositecontinue, begin, start (entry), resume

   Note

   Here the verb takes an object, and one pair shows the shift: his twitching ceased, but he ceased twitching. The object can be a noun (cease operations) or an -ing form (cease taking the medication). Compared with the intransitive use, the focus moves from the activity running out to the person or body that brings it to a halt.

3. 3
   verbobsoleteintransitive

   To fail or be lacking; to die or perish.

   The poor shall never cease out of the land.

   1611, The Holy Bible, King James Version

   ’Twere best at once to sink to peace, ⁠Like birds the charming serpent draws, ⁠To drop head-foremost in the jaws Of vacant darkness and to cease.

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam

   Similarlack

   Note

   An older, starker meaning: here people and things themselves run out or die, where the everyday "stop" meaning ends an activity. The Holy Bible of 1611 promises "the poor shall never cease out of the land" (they will never be lacking), and Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850) uses it for dying: "to drop head-foremost in the jaws / Of vacant darkness and to cease." Being obsolete, it reads naturally only as a deliberate echo.

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