stops short

Verb

stop short (third-person singular simple present stops short, present participle stopping short, simple past and past participle stopped short)

1. To come to a sudden and unexpected stop, particularly while speaking or driving a vehicle.
   • He had only taken a step forward into the room when he again stopped short to exclaim.1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle
2. (usually, with-of) To voluntarily cease an attempt to reach a certain point.
   • Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp...1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter III...

   Synonyms:

   hold back

3. (with-of) To come to a stop before reaching a certain point.
   • Thirteen people were injured in August 1957 when this Bristol freighter skidded on the runway at Southend Airport when landing with a flight from Calais. It ploughed through the boundary fence, but thankfully stopped short of the railway and the 1,500V overhead wires. A tripwire was installed on...2020 December 30, Tim Dunn, “The railway's mechanical marvels”, in Rail, page 58, photo caption