pause

Pronunciation

• IPA: UK /pɔːz/, US /pɑːz/, /pɔːz/^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French pause and directly from Latin pausa, a halt, stop,^[2][3][4] from Greek παῦσις (paûsis, “stopping, ceasing”),^[2][3] from παύειν (paúein), to stop, cease, a word of unknown origin.^[2][3] Merriam-Webster compares Ancient Greek παῦλα (paûla), rest.^[5] repose and pose go back to the same Latin word.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A short stop or rest, especially in singing or speech: about 1426 in Barnhart, about 1440 in the OED.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

To give pause, to cause to hesitate, is first recorded in Shakespeare's Hamlet (1602).^[2][7] The verb is from 1440, in the Promptorium Parvulorum, partly from the noun and partly from Middle French pauser, Late Latin pausāre;^[2][5] Etymonline dates it from the 1520s.^[3] In music, a pause is the sign over a note to be held, and a pause button on an electronic device belongs to recent use.^[8][9]

Timeline

• c. 1426 – a short stop.^[2]
• 1440 – to pause (verb).^[2]
• 1597 – a rest in music (obsolete).^[7]
• 1602 – to give pause.^[2][7]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A temporary stop or rest in speech or action.
2. A hesitation, as from uncertainty: to give pause.
3. (music) A sign over a note or rest showing that it is to be held.
4. A control on an electronic device that stops playback for a time.

Verb

1. To stop an action for a time; to hesitate.
2. To halt the operation of a device for a time: to pause the film.

Word family

• pausal
• pauseful
• pausefully
• pauseless
• pauselessly
• pauser
• pausingly
• aeropause

Related words

• pose
• repose
• menopause

References

1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins