From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishstop short of doing somethingstop short of doing somethingto almost do something but then decide not to do it They accused the president of incompetence, but stopped short of calling for his resignation. → short
Examples from the Corpus
stop short of doing something• Paula stopped just short of calling me a thief.• But they have stopped short of rejecting the idea altogether.• Doctors stop short of saying the disease is always fatal, but medical literature paints a bleak picture.• Even then I stopped short of making a complaint.• He believed in a kind of progressive development of forms, but like Forbes stopped short of an actual evolutionary theory.• His passion has only just stopped short of writing a structural critique of the civil engineering faults at Valhalla.• Wisely, perhaps, Marochnik stops short of drawing any dramatic conclusions, but two things are clear.• Yet we stop short of analysing what it is.stop short of (doing) somethingstop short of (doing) somethingNOT DO somethingto decide that you are not willing to do something wrong or dangerous, though you will do something similar that is less dangerous The US government supported sanctions but stopped short of military action. → stopExamples from the Corpus
stop short of (doing) something• Shepherd stopped short of calling him a liar.• Yet the argument against Ashdown's triumphalism has to stop short of encouraging the same fatal hubris among Labour politicians.• In fact, no general pattern is discernible, except that almost all stop short of full accountability to Parliament.• He stopped short of making recommendations about weapons programs in his 90-minute meeting at the White House.• I know people who would maim and yet stop short of murder.• Doctors stop short of saying the disease is always fatal, but medical literature paints a bleak picture.• Eric Gray charged back up the court before stopping short of the center line.• Even if it stops short of this extreme, retroactive cost justification is largely ineffective. 