From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishgive somebody pause (for thought)give somebody pause (for thought)THINK ABOUTto make someone stop and consider carefully what they are doing an avoidable accident that should give us all pause for thought → pause
Examples from the Corpus
give somebody pause (for thought)• Even seemingly innocuous turnstile-exits with interlocking horizontal bars give my sister pause, however.• Knowing what Edmund has done to his real father might have given Cornwall pause before proclaiming himself the next one.• High real estate prices have given potential buyers pause.• Yet the offer seems to have given Burton no pause.• The breadth of this holding gives one pause.• But it gave you some pause to think of what else might be crawling around there.• It gave him pause, but soon enough he had his own retort.-Yeah, right.• Their sparring for position of least-favoured son gave me pause for thought. 