stand still
stand still verb: to stop moving, to remain motionless. Also the obsolete spelling of standstill.
Verb
stand still (third-person singular simple present stands still, present participle standing still, simple past and past participle stood still)
- To stop moving, to remain motionless.
- My legs were stiff because I'd been standing still for a long time.
- 12 ¶ Then spake Ioshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord deliuered vp the Amorites before the children of Israel, and hee said in the sight of Israel, Sunne, stand thou still vpon Gibeon, and thou Moone in the valley of Aialon.
13 And the Sunne stood still, and the Moone stayed, vntill the...1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Joshua 10:12–13
- to tolerate
- Will you accept your second class status
A nation of waitresses and waiters
Will you mix their martinis
Will you stand still for it
Or will you take to the hills1987, Roger Waters, “Home”, in Radio K.A.O.S.
- Will you accept your second class status
Also used as
stand still is also the obsolete spelling of standstill.
Forms of stand still
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | stands still |
| present participle | standing still |
| past participle | stood still |
| past | stood still |
| Noun | |
| plural | stand stills |
Words formed from stand still
Questions about stand still
- What does stand still mean?
- Stand still means to stop moving, to remain motionless.
- What part of speech is stand still?
- Stand still is a verb.
- What is the past tense of stand still?
- The past tense of stand still is stood still.
Words near stand still in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: stand still (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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “stand still.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stand_still. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.