Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) to have a drink.

1915		C.J. Dennis Songs of a Sentimental Bloke gloss. 🌐 Stop a pot – To quaff ale.
1916		C.J. Dennis ‘War’ in Moods of Ginger Mick 24: But, lad, I ’ave to, wiv the thirst I got / I’m goin’ over now to stop a pot.
1931		Mail (Adelaide) 30 May 9/5: ‘Booze’ and ‘spot’ are familiar to most people, as is the invitation to ‘stop one’.
1942		L. Mann Go-Getter 8: But if he should recognise any one, he could scarcely avoid asking: ‘Could you stop a pint?’ [AND].

the last child born to a family.

1923

J. Manchon Le Slang.

(UK Und.) a method of picking pockets in which one criminal stops a likely pedestrian ostensibly to ask directions while an accomplice does the thieving.

1859		Matsell Vocabulum 86: Two or more well-dressed pickpockets go into a fashionable quiet street and promenade singly until they select a person that will answer their purpose; one of them stops the person and inquires the direction to a place somewhat distant. On being informed of the route he should take, he pretends not to understand his informant, who, getting a little more interested in his desire to be explicit, draws closer to the inquirer. At about this point, one of both of the others walk up and in an instant the amiable individual is minus some part of his movable property. The above practice is what is termed the ‘stop lay’.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 81: Stop Lay, well dressed pickpockets who join in conversation with unsuspecting people and pick their pockets.

1. one who stays out enjoying themselves longer than the speaker considers respectable; thus any absentee (see cite 1996) usu. as dirty stop-out.

1906		E. Dyson Fact’ry ’Ands 24: You dirty stop-out!
1918		R.H. Knyvett ‘Over There’ with the Australians 29: Here lies a D.S.O. (Dirty Stop-Out).
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 72: Stop-out, an inveterate gadabout, esp. a woman.
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 65: ‘Aren’t I a dirty old stop out!’ she said.
1975		D. Davin Breathing Spaces 124: Here they come [...] the dirty stop outs.
1981		W. Russell Educating Rita I ii: Ratatouille. Though Julia has renamed it the ‘stopouts dish’. It can simmer in an oven for days.
1996		Boston Globe (MA) 24 Mar. 76/1: In the 1960s and early 70s college students routinely took a year off to see the world [...] College administrators called them ‘stop-outs’.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1.

1914

Truth (Melbourne) 31 Jan. 11/1: Many a stop-out blokey, more or less tanked, tumbled into her arms.

(bingo) the number 65.

1981		P. Wright Cockney Dialect and Sl. 110: 65 = stop work.
2001		J. Burkardt ‘The Bingo Code’ Wordplay 🌐 65: stop work.

see cop a packet under packet n.

(US) to be shot (dead).

1931		C.B. Yorke ‘Mob Murder’ in Gangland Stories Mar. 🌐 I knew what would happen as soon as Clam stopped a slug. [Ibid.] One false move out of you and you’ll stop lead. My rods don’t miss!
1933		R. Chandler ‘Blackmailers Don’t Shoot’ in Red Wind (1946) 103: Landrey stopped lead. [Ibid.] 105: In that business he was bound to stop a bullet sometime.
1937		‘Operator 1384’ Black Arab 195: ‘What’s wrong with him?’ I demanded. ‘Stopped a bullet in the thigh,’ the sergeant replied’ .
1939		Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ) 7 Mar. 10/5: [cartoon caption] ‘We prefers to fight it out!’ ‘Yeah! an’ you’ll stop a slug!’.
1945		Dly Inter lake (Kalispell, MO) 18 May 7/3: ‘I’d hate to stop a slug in the back’.
1952		C. Hamilton Men of the Und. 92: When they stopped a slug [...] they passed into legend as colorful heroes.
1982		Akron Beacon-Jrnl (OH) 26 Mar. 42/1: While they might not stop traffic, they’ll stop a slug from a .357-caliber Magnum.
1992		L.A.Times 11 Oct. A32-3: ‘I didn’t want to stop a slug. I didn’t want to be shot’.

(US drugs) to use Ecstasy .

2001

Newark Advocate (OH) 21 Oct. 5A/4: Stop, drop and roll: to use Ecstasy.

(UK Und.) the headquarters of the contemporary London underworld.

1612		Dekker ‘Of their Libkens or Lodgings’ O per se O N4: One of the meeting places, as I haue heard, being a Sheepcote, is by the Quest of Roagues who nightly assemble there, called by the name of ‘Stophole Abbey’.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Stop-hole Abbey, the Nick-name of the chief Rendezvous of the canting Crew of Gypsies, Beggers, Cheats, Thieves, &c.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1749		B.M. Carew ‘The Oath of the Canting Crew’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 50: Religiously maintain / Authority of those who reign / Over Stop-Hole Abbey Green.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 172: The honour you have conferred upon us in gracing Stop-Hole Abbey with your presence.

(N.Z.) to stop doing something; often as imper.

1904		‘G.B. Lancaster’ Sons O’ Men 5: Stop off that row, and git inter yer boots.
1988		(ref. to c.1880) McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 108/1: stop off to cease; eg ‘Stop off, will you. Can’t you see the fellow’s about to cark?’ c. 1880.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].

see under one n.¹

(also stop it, stop something) lit. or fig. to be wounded.

1856		Bell’s Life in Sydney 19 Apr. 3/2: Towards the conclusion of tho second round however, and just as Madame Smith had ‘stopped’ a well intended one from Mrs Ryan's left and was in the net of ‘countering heavily,’ Ryan rushed in .
1892		‘Fanny Flukem’s Ball’ in Bird o’ Freedom (Sydney) in J. Murray Larrikins (1973) 40: The Tempe blokes just stopped one each / And then they guyed a whack. / ‘It isn’t on our programme / And, Gor’ bli’me we are jack.’.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Oct. 30/3: [F]or eighteenpence you can assure that your widow gets £100 if you have the bad luck to stop one of the German’s newest things in butcher’s smallgoods.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 7 Mar. 5/1: They Say [...] That Alf. S. and Jocker T. [...] were putting in on Doss K. and Nellie C.
1916		Wipers Times 20 Mar. (2006) 44/1: And now – you’ve ‘stopped one.’.
1918		C.J. Dennis ‘A Digger’s Tale’ in Chisholm (1951) 102: I don’t see ’er no more; ’cos I stopped one.
1918		Kia Ora Coo-ee 15 Mar. 4/2: The mare that stopped a sentry’s shot and fell, a woeful heap, / Ere to the guarded gate she brought the man who went to sleep.
1926		(con. 1918) L. Nason Chevrons 261: They had a machine gun up and he stopped one.
1930		(con. 1914–18) Brophy & Partridge Songs and Sl. of the British Soldier.
1933		(con. WWI) F. Richards Old Soldiers Never Die (1964) 96: He informed me that it was a bloody bake as Smith had stopped it through the pound.
1943		Smith & Carnes American Guerrilla 269: I turned my head to one side to see how my two English companions had fared. [...] I called to them that I’d ‘stopped something’ and they came to my side .
1999		G. Seal Lingo 58: Soldiers had plenty of euphemisms for death and the devices that brought it. These included [...] to stop one, as in a bullet.

see under blubber n.¹

1. to defeat heavily, to render beyond aggression.

1914		R. Tressell Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (1955) 450: I gives ’im a slosh in the dial an’ stopped ’is clock!
1977		N.C. Heard When Shadows Fall 131: ‘A friend of Miller’s told Booker that [they] stopped Miller’s clock to keep him from leaving the company .
1979		Dly News (NY) 11 Dec. 61/1: Four ninth-round punches to Willie Classsen’s head ‘stopped his clock’.

2. to kill.

1953		J. Thompson Alcoholics (1993) 43: You can tell ’em one more drink will stop their clock, but they’ll go right ahead and take it.
2001		(con. 1975–6) E. Little Steel Toes 151: Shit, mate, I know you would like to stop my clock. Don’t blame ya.

(Ulster) a pessimist.

1997

Share Slanguage.

to accomplish two tasks simultaneously.

1600

P. Holland Livy xxiii. iii. 474: Therefore with one bush (as they say) ye are to stop two gaps, and to do both at once.

see stap my vitals! excl.

see under gab n.¹

see under gap n.¹