stopped

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of stop.

   The rain stopped just before noon.

   They had stopped for gas before the long drive north.

   Note

   One spelling does three jobs: the simple past (the rain stopped), the perfect (they had stopped), and the passive (the car was stopped). The verb is regular, though the final p doubles before -ed. Because stop is both intransitive and transitive, the form can describe what halted on its own or what something else halted. The adjectives inherit that split, from the general halted state to the stopped motorist.

2. 2
   adjective

   In the still or inactive state that follows coming to a halt.

   The stopped escalator forced everyone onto the stairs.

   With the machine stopped, the whole workshop fell silent.

   Similaridle, stationary, motionless, still

   Oppositemoving, running, working

   Note

   The widened version of the vehicle sense applies to anything that has come to a halt, such as an escalator, a machine or a clock. Its best-known home is a proverb: a stopped clock is right twice a day. The saying points at someone who is occasionally correct by accident rather than by judgment.

3. 3
   adjective

   Halted but not properly parked or berthed; also describing the occupants of such a vehicle.

   A stopped freighter drifted just outside the harbor mouth.

   Officers approached the stopped motorists to check their papers.

   Similarstationary, idle

   Oppositemoving

   Note

   A traffic word that draws a line parked never crosses: a stopped car sits where it is not meant to stay, such as a road shoulder, a live lane, or open water for a ship. It also stretches to the people inside, as in We were stopped for more than three hours! Read such sentences with care. They can equally be the passive of the verb, meaning someone else halted us.

4. 4
   adjective

   Having a stop, or closed at one end, as with certain pipes or tubes.

   Each stopped pipe sounds an octave lower than an open one of the same length.

   The builder added a row of stopped flutes to the new organ.

   Similarclosed, capped

   Oppositeopen

   Note

   An organ builder's adjective, and likely one that comes from the noun stop rather than the verb: the pipe has a stop, a closure at one end. That closed end makes the air column resonate at odd harmonics. As a result, a stopped pipe sounds roughly an octave below an open pipe of the same length, which yields low notes from short pipes.

5. 5
   adjective

   Produced by completely closing the speech organs in the mouth, as with consonants such as b, d, p, and t.

   A stopped consonant briefly halts the breath before releasing it.

   Many languages contrast stopped sounds with continuous ones like s and f.

   Similarplosive, occlusive

   Oppositecontinuous

   Note

   A phonetician's term for consonants built on a full closure, with the lips for p and b or the tongue against the ridge behind the teeth for d and t. It can also name a sound change. Henry Sweet's A History of English Sounds (1874) writes that þ was first voiced and then stopped, becoming d. In other words, the th sound closed off completely.

6. 6
   adjective

   In a well-pruned condition, with growth trimmed back and kept tidy.

   A stopped chrysanthemum branches more freely and flowers a little later.

   The nursery sold stopped seedlings that were ready for transplanting.

   Similarpinched, trimmed

   Note

   In the garden the word is a false friend: a stopped plant has not stopped growing. Its growing tips have been pinched or cut back, which pushes it to branch sideways into a denser, more compact shape. Read it here as trimmed with a purpose, not as halted.

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