Word.ws English Dictionary

given pause

given pause is the past participle of give pause.

Meaning of give pause

Verb

give pause (third-person singular simple present gives pause, present participle giving pause, simple past gave pause, past participle given pause)

  1. (idiomatic) To cause (someone) to hesitate and think carefully about something, giving (the person) cause to be unsure or concerned about something.
    • I was going to put up the new logo, since a majority of people like it a little better than the old one, but the ferocity of those who think it's terrible gives me pause.

Questions about given pause

What is given pause the past participle of?
Given pause is the past participle of give pause.

Words near given pause in the dictionary

  1. given one's notice
  2. given one's word
  3. given oneself airs
  4. given out
  5. given over
  6. given pause
  7. given paw
  8. given place
  9. given pursuit
  10. given rise to
  11. given somebody time

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: given pause (page history and authors); give pause (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “given pause.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/given_pause. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.