stopper
/ˈstɒpə
/noun
1A plug for sealing a hole, especially in the neck of a bottle or other container.Marie shredded the book's pages, enclosed the shreds within gel capsules, put the capsules inside a glass druggist's bottle, and sealed the bottle with a cork stopper....
- Many parts of the Mediterranean are facing an environmental crisis as wine makers stop using traditional cork stoppers for their wine bottles.
- He began saving cork stoppers from bottles of wine drunk by his parents, then began collecting them from bars and restaurants in his home town.
Synonyms
cork, lid, cap, top;
plug, bung, spigot, spile;
North American stopple
2 [in combination] A person or thing that halts or obstructs a specified thing: a crime-stopper
2.1(In soccer or American football) a player whose function is to block attacks on goal from the middle of the field.He is an excellent goal stopper and he has been known to try and take on opposing players with his amazing skills....
- There shouldn't be any serious questions asked of the American stopper until he is given ample protection from his defenders.
- The defense desperately needs him to be the run stopper in the middle.
2.2 Baseball A starting pitcher depended on to win a game or reverse a losing streak, or a relief pitcher who prevents the opposing team from scoring highly.It's easy to compile a list of big league pitchers who went from stopper to plugger....
- It's been a rocky first month for Foulke, Mariano Rivera and, for that matter, a lot of other stoppers around baseball.
- As the Cubs late-inning stopper in 1965, Abernathy led the majors with 84 appearances and 31 saves.
2.3(In sailing or climbing) a rope or clamp for preventing a rope or cable from being run out.Everything held firm, including the sheet stopper through which the halyard was led into the cockpit....
- The belay consisted of a couple of s - ty stoppers, numbers three and four, in really fractured rock.
- Trad climbers use friends, chocks, stoppers and other passive and active gear instead.
2.4 Bridge another term for control. they established they had no spade stopper, and settled in four diamonds
verb [with object] (usually as adjective stoppered)
Use a stopper to seal (a bottle or other container): a small stoppered jar...
- Put your dilute acid in a tightly stoppered container, preferably one with an eye dropper.
- Yeast is dispensed into it and it is then plugged before the bottle is stoppered with the usual crown cap.
- In one photograph, this table holds a wicker basket piled high with cherries; in another, a tightly stoppered glass jar in which two peaches gently float.
Phrases
put a (or the) stopper on