full stop meaning: definition, quotations

full stop

nounalso spelled full-stop

UK /ˌfʊl ˈstɒp/

Commonwealth, Ireland, UK The punctuation mark ⟨.⟩ (indicating the end of a sentence or marking an abbreviation).

Figuratively A decisive end to something.

[S]pielberg was keen to stress that The Fabelmans is not a full stop: “It is not because I decided to retire, and this is my swan song, don’t believe that.”2022 October 22, Wendy Ide, quoting Steven Spielberg, “‘It’s a way to bring my mum and dad back’: Steven Spielberg on the new wave of cine-memoirs”, in The Guardian:

A complete stop.

The train moved slowly, very slowly, but at least it was moving, and the customers were grateful even for indecisive motion going their way. Just outside the Nassau border, in Queens, the train came to a full stop.1978 February 26, Richard F. Shepard, “ABOUT LONG ISLAND: 7 Hours to Manhasset, and So Forth”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Dec 2025:
What’s more, Mr Samek did not even wake up after the car had come to a full stop: officers were forced to wake hm up by knocking on the window, according to a police report that indicated the autopilot feature was likely on “considering the vehicle’s ability to slow to a stop when Samek was asleep.”2018 December 3, Chris Riotta, “How police stopped a speeding Tesla with a sleeping driver behind the wheel”, in The Independent, London: Independent News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 Dec 2018:

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For example, the NHTSA forced Tesla to prevent the system from executing illegal “rolling stops” (moving slowly through a stop sign without ever coming to a full stop, while an “unexpected braking” problem is the subject of a current inquiry.2022 March 27, Laurie Clarke, “How self-driving cars got stuck in the slow lane”, in The Observer, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 Mar 2022:

Synonyms: period, dot, point, -x, hard stop
Derived terms: Chinese full stop, full-stop landing, full-stop, full-stopped, ideographic full stop, Japanese full stop
Related terms: apostrophe, curly brackets, brace, square bracket, bracket, colon, comma, dash, ellipsis, exclamation mark, fraction slash, guillemet, hyphen, interpunct, interrobang, parentheses (US, Canada), full stop or period, question mark, quotation marks, semicolon, slash, stroke, space

intj

Colloquial Used to emphasize the end of an important statement or point when speaking to show something is not up for discussion or debate.

Synonyms: and that’s final, hard stop, that’s that, it’s as simple as that, period, end of
Related terms: dot dot dot, question mark

adj

Complete.

I'm also not sure that he's a full-stop lead guard, though. He might be more of a guard who needs to play next to a playing-making guard who can get his own shot, because that's something he'll struggle with early in his career.2020 March 19, Sam Vecenie, “Vecenie: 2020 NBA Mock Draft, Version 4.0: Frozen in time”, in The Athletic, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Dec 2025:
And Hochman won’t say whether he voted for Trump. Early, however, is a full-stop Trumpster. He’s an unabashed conservative whom the Bonta team would love to run against in November.2022 May 19, George Skelton, “California attorney general is one of few key races on the ballot. It’s worth our attention”, in Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 May 2022:

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Gaye was a full-stop genius, Townsend a fine songwriter, and “Let’s Get It On” is an objectively great song.2023 May 2, Elizabeth Nelson, “Opinion | The Ed Sheeran lawsuit is a threat to Western civilization. Really.”, in The Washington Post, Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 02 May 2023:

verb

Ambitransitive, Informal, Rare To completely stop.

Three touch and goes later, (and after a refresher on CTAF radio ops - announcing I'm on base when I'm really on downwind might confuse people), I full-stopped and taxied up to the little commuter terminal. CFI and the kids get out, and I'm on my own.1997 November 21, Don Corbitt, “Solo In Seattle”, in rec.aviation.student (Usenet), archived from the original on 10 Dec 2025:
I full-stopped on the seventh landing, and taxied back to the ramp - I have a 10:00 meeting, and I'm thinking too much about that.1998 February 6, Sean Franklin, “Lesson 11 (long)”, in rec.aviation.student (Usenet), archived from the original on 10 Dec 2025:

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The cop made a rolling stop and went on through. She full-stopped, then drove up behind him, flashed her lights and tooted her horn.1999 August 26, Paul Chefurka, “Dumbest tickets ever: What's yours?”, in rec.autos.makers.honda (Usenet), archived from the original on 10 Dec 2025:
He'd come out and shout every week, and the group would continue to ignore him. Even when the letter to the sheriff, who wrote/called AAVC leadership, who lectured the group at the start of the ride, who then full-stopped the group there once, the next ride it was back to roll-through-as-usual, and the yelling.2008 August 10, Andy H., “NYTimes article”, in Walk Bike Washtenaw (Google Groups), archived from the original on 10 Dec 2025:
The developers told everybody the hippies' remonstrating was just environmental extremism and they didn't want you to have a home on this beautiful prairie. THE responsible party that did know where homes were going in harms way and should've full-stopped the development idiocy: US Army Corps of Engineers*.2017 October 17, Damien Carey, “Soooo, nobody told homeowners...reeeeeeeally? Nobody?”, in LHANC Buzz (Google Groups), archived from the original on 10 Dec 2025:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — authors: page histories for full stop and full-stop.