Word.ws English Dictionary

stop the lights

stop the lights interjection: an interjection expressing exasperation or incredulity. or to illustrate the humour in a situation.

Interjection

  1. (Ireland, idiomatic) An interjection expressing exasperation or incredulity. or to illustrate the humour in a situation.
    • Sure, stop the lights, I know all about it. There's a great shop in Phibsboro.Transformations' Any size you want.2003, Stella Feehily, Duck, page 62
    • Oh, stop the lights. The Priest is after parkin' across the street. I think he's comin' over here.2003, Ronan Noone, The Lepers of Baile Baiste, page 57

Origin of stop the lights

* Originated as a catchphrase on the Irish quiz show Quicksilver, where contestants called out "Stop the lights" when they did not know the answer, to prevent loss of prize money for the next questions.

Questions about stop the lights

What does stop the lights mean?
Stop the lights means an interjection expressing exasperation or incredulity. or to illustrate the humour in a situation.
What part of speech is stop the lights?
Stop the lights is an interjection.

Words near stop the lights in the dictionary

  1. stop street
  2. stop streets
  3. stop the bleeding
  4. stop the car
  5. stop the job
  6. stop the lights
  7. stop the presses
  8. stop thief
  9. stop thrust
  10. stop thrusts
  11. stop to smell the roses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stop the lights (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 the lights.ogg.

Cite this entry: “stop the lights.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stop_the_lights. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.