[stoʊp]
OriginApparently related to step, but with uncertain phonological development. Perhaps from a German Low German word like Stoop (“step”), from Middle Low German stōpe (“step”). More at stoop.
- A mining excavation in the form of a terrace of steps.
“The other smell […] that worked its way into your clothes, your skin, your spirit, believed here to rise by way of long-deserted drifts and stopes, from the everyday atmosphere of Hell itself.”
- To excavate in the form of stopes.
- To fill in with rubbish, as a space from which the ore has been worked out.
- form-of, obsolete, pastsimple past of step
Formsstopes(plural) · stopes(present, singular, third-person) · stoping(participle, present) · stoped(participle, past) · stoped(past)