From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishstop shortstop shortSTOP DOING somethingQUIETto suddenly stop speaking or stop what you are doing, because something has surprised you or you have just thought of something Seeing her tears, he stopped short. → short
Examples from the Corpus
stop short• He reads a few lines and stops short.• At the crest of the hill, she stopped short as she read a warning sign next to the trail.• It goes without saying that all this stops short at the people, who have been abandoned to the authorities' exploitation.• The door opened abruptly, and over Roman's shoulder Claudia saw Dana stop short in confusion.• He believed in a kind of progressive development of forms, but like Forbes stopped short of an actual evolutionary theory.• Both stop short of demanding censorship, though Mary Whitehouse is characteristically less tentative.• Wisely, perhaps, Marochnik stops short of drawing any dramatic conclusions, but two things are clear.• Even then I stopped short of making a complaint.• He stopped short of making recommendations about weapons programs in his 90-minute meeting at the White House. 