stop someone in their tracks
stop someone in their tracks verb: to prevent someone from continuing along a path or way, literal or figurative, he has begun going along.
Verb
stop someone in their tracks (third-person singular simple present stops someone in their tracks, present participle stopping someone in their tracks, simple past and past participle stopped someone in their tracks)
- To prevent someone from continuing along a path or way, literal or figurative, he has begun going along.
- This magnificent picture really stopped me in my tracks when I stumbled across it. I was drawn inexorably and immediately into the compelling detail discernible on this top-quality image.2021 December 1, Nigel Harris, “St Pancras and King's Cross: 1947”, in RAIL, number 945, page 36
Forms of stop someone in their tracks
| third-person singular present | stops someone in their tracks |
|---|---|
| present participle | stopping someone in their tracks |
| past participle | stopped someone in their tracks |
| past | stopped someone in their tracks |
Questions about stop someone in their tracks
- What does stop someone in their tracks mean?
- Stop someone in their tracks means to prevent someone from continuing along a path or way, literal or figurative, he has begun going along.
- What part of speech is stop someone in their tracks?
- Stop someone in their tracks is a verb.
- What is the past tense of stop someone in their tracks?
- The past tense of stop someone in their tracks is stopped someone in their tracks.
Words near stop someone in their tracks in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: stop someone in their tracks (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-stop someone in his tracks.ogg.
Cite this entry: “stop someone in their tracks.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stop_someone_in_their_tracks. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.