Word.ws English Dictionary

hit pause

hit pause verb: to pause (an activity); stop, terminate.

Verb

hit pause (third-person singular simple present hits pause, present participle hitting pause, simple past and past participle hit pause)

  1. (idiomatic) To pause (an activity); stop, terminate.
    • We need to hit pause on this project for now, and switch gears to the next thing.

Forms of hit pause

third-person singular presenthits pause
present participlehitting pause
past participlehit pause
pasthit pause

Origin of hit pause

Refers to hitting a literal pause button (on a controller, etc.).

Questions about hit pause

What does hit pause mean?
Hit pause means to pause (an activity); stop, terminate.
What part of speech is hit pause?
Hit pause is a verb.
What is the past tense of hit pause?
The past tense of hit pause is hit pause.

Words near hit pause in the dictionary

  1. hit one's stride
  2. hit out
  3. hit out of the park
  4. hit parade
  5. hit parades
  6. hit pause
  7. hit pay dirt
  8. hit paydirt
  9. hit piece
  10. hit pieces
  11. hit point

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hit 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: “hit pause.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hit_pause. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.