Word.ws English Dictionary

stop-work

stop-work noun: temporary cessation of labor as a form of protest.

Noun

stop-work (plural stop-works)

  1. (Australia, New Zealand, attributive, usually) Temporary cessation of labor as a form of protest.
    • a stop-work meeting
    • 41. No stop-work meeting shall be held at the mine without the permission of the manager.1942, New Zealand Department of Labour, Awards, Agreements, Orders, Etc., page 1213
    Synonyms:
    walkout, strike
  2. (Canada, US, attributive, usually) Causing work to cease temporarily for administrative reasons such as safety concerns or legal action.
    • a stop-work order.
    • The Bureau of Reclamation of the Department of Interior has appealed to the War Production Board for reconsideration of the stop-work order of December 12, 1942, on the Newton project, Cache County, Utah1944, United States Congress, Interior Department Appropriation Bill for 1944, page 781

Examples of stop-work in a sentence

  • MORE than 4000 NZ Post workers will begin a series of nationwide stop-work meetings today to discuss what their union has said is privatisation by the back door.1999 April 13, “NZ Post staff to hold stop-works”, in Dominion, Wellington, page 7:
  • Train drivers across Adelaide will walk off the job today to attend a stop-work meeting about their enterprise bargaining negotiations.2016 September 14, “Adelaide train strike to hit network as drivers stop work”, in ABC Premium News, Sydney:
  • State schools will be closed until 10.30am on Wednesday due to a decision by the Australian Education Union to call a two-hour stop-work meeting involving both teachers and teacher assistants.2022 September 27, David Killick, Bob Inglis, “Tasmanian child care services experiencing demand spike as teachers prepare industrial...
  • [Mayor Mark] Morial issued a stop-work order to suspend the razing of the building2000 May 27, Coleman Warner, “Morial halts razing of building that contained funeral home”, in Times-Picayune, New Orleans, page B3:

Synonyms of stop-work

Forms of stop-work

pluralstop-works
alternative formstopwork
alternative formstop work

Origin of stop-work

From stop (“to cease; to cause to cease”, verb) + work (noun). Attested from the 20th century.

Questions about stop-work

What does stop-work mean?
Stop-work means temporary cessation of labor as a form of protest.
How do you use stop-work in a sentence?
MORE than 4000 NZ Post workers will begin a series of nationwide stop-work meetings today to discuss what their union has said is privatisation by the back door.
What part of speech is stop-work?
Stop-work is a noun.
What is the plural of stop-work?
The plural of stop-work is stop-works.

Words near stop-work in the dictionary

  1. stop-phrases
  2. stop-start
  3. stop-tap
  4. stop-taps
  5. stop-time
  6. stop-work
  7. stop-works
  8. Stopa
  9. stopable
  10. Stopas
  11. stopband

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stop-work (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: “stop-work.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stop-work. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.