Noun: pause
| Singular | pause |
| Plural | pauses |
Sample Sentences
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If the afternoon was fine they strolled together in the park, very slowly, and with pauses to draw breath wherever the ground sloped upward. The slightest effort made the patient cough. [1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XLV, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 374:]
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to take pause (to hesitate)
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to give pause (to cause to hesitate)
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And like a man to double buſsines bound, / I ſtand in pauſe where I ſhall firſt beginne, […] [c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke: […] (Second Quarto), London: […] I[ames] R[oberts] for N[icholas] L[ing] […], published 1604, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:]
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The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, said on Sunday he would have “great pause” about granting a pardon or commutation to Ghislaine Maxwell while another House Republican said it should be considered as part of an effort to obtain more information about Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. [2025 July 27, Sam Levine, quoting Mike Johnson, “Mike Johnson would have ‘great pause’ about a Ghislaine Maxwell pardon”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:]
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Teach the pupil to mind the pauses.
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He [Paul] is full of the Matter he treats and writes with Warmth, which uſually neglects Method, and thoſe Partitions and Pauſes which Men educated in the Schools of Rhetoricians uſually obſerve. [a. 1705 (date written), [John Locke], “[An Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul’s Epistles, […]]”, in A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for Awnsham and John Churchill, […], published 1707, →OCLC, page xxiii:]
Nouns inflected like pause
soldier's woundwort,
Nicosian,
whopper,
greypate,
tactile sign language,
chronotrope,
Rosie Lee,
dissentient,
photoinactivator,
sulphonediimine,
coastal waterfall,
residuary devise,
bituminization,
nitrosonaphthol,
smṛiti,
geosphere,
backscreen,
mensuralist,
flocculate,
flocculant, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From Middle French pause, from Latin pausa, from Ancient Greek παῦσις (paûsis), from Ancient Greek παύω (paúō, “stop”), of uncertain origin. Doublet of pausa. See: Latin Nouns '
pausa', Ancient Greek Nouns '
παῦσις'.