Word.ws English Dictionary

stop and search

stop and search is the alternative form of stop-and-search.

Meaning of stop-and-search

Adjective

stop-and-search

  1. Of or pertaining to laws or policing practices, found in some jurisdictions, which permit a law enforcement officer to temporarily detain and search a member of the public based on the officer's suspicions.
    • Adding to the department's problems is a long-running controversy over a stop-and-search policy that includes random searches of young black men.1990 January 18, Constance L. Hays, “3 Cases Raise Questions on Boston Police Methods”, in New York Times, retrieved 20 Aug 2013

See all 2 meanings of stop-and-search

Questions about stop and search

What is stop and search the alternative form of?
Stop and search is the alternative form of stop-and-search.

Words near stop and search in the dictionary

  1. stop and frisk
  2. stop and frisks
  3. stop and go light
  4. stop and go lights
  5. stop and run
  6. stop and search
  7. stop and smell the flowers
  8. stop and smell the roses
  9. stop at nothing
  10. stop bar
  11. stop bead

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stop and search (page history and authors); stop-and-search (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 and search.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stop_and_search. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.