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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

pause.

To take a temporary rest, take a break for a short period after an effort.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/pɔːz/Received-Pronunciation/poːz/Australia, British, New-Zealand, Southern, Standard/pɔz//pɑz/cot-caught-merger
  1. To take a temporary rest, take a break for a short period after an effort.

    intransitive
  2. To stop (an activity) for a while.

    transitive
  3. To interrupt an activity and wait.

    intransitive
    When telling the scary story, he paused for effect.
  4. To hesitate; to hold back; to delay.

    intransitive
  5. To halt the play or playback of, temporarily, so that it can be resumed from the same point.

    transitive
    to pause a song, a video, or a computer game
  6. To consider; to reflect.

    intransitive · obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle French pause, from Latin pausa, from Ancient Greek παῦσις (paûsis), from Ancient Greek παύω (paúō, “stop”), of uncertain origin. Doublet of pausa.

noun/pɔːz/Received-Pronunciation/poːz/Australia, British, New-Zealand, Southern, Standard/pɔz//pɑz/cot-caught-merger
  1. A temporary stop or rest; an intermission of action; interruption; suspension; cessation.

  2. A short time for relaxing and doing something else.

  3. Hesitation; suspense; doubt.

    figuratively
    to take pause
    to give pause
  4. In writing and printing, a mark indicating the place and nature of an arrest of voice in reading; a punctuation mark.

    Teach the pupil to mind the pauses.
  5. A break or paragraph in writing.

  6. A sign indicating continuance of a note or rest.

  7. Alternative letter-case form of Pause (“a button that pauses or resumes something”).

    alt-of
Where this word comes from

From Middle French pause, from Latin pausa, from Ancient Greek παῦσις (paûsis), from Ancient Greek παύω (paúō, “stop”), of uncertain origin. Doublet of pausa.

intj/pɔːz/Received-Pronunciation/poːz/Australia, British, New-Zealand, Southern, Standard/pɔz//pɑz/cot-caught-merger
  1. Used immediately after a statement to indicate that there was no innuendo or homosexual meaning intended, especially when such a meaning is a reasonable interpretation.

    slang
Where this word comes from

From Middle French pause, from Latin pausa, from Ancient Greek παῦσις (paûsis), from Ancient Greek παύω (paúō, “stop”), of uncertain origin. Doublet of pausa.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.