pause

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To cease or suspend an action temporarily.
2. v. To linger; tarry: paused for a while under the huge oak tree.
3. v. To hesitate: He paused before replying.
4. v. To cease or suspend the action of temporarily; stop for an interim: "Once a movie [ordered on demand] begins, it can be paused but not rewound or fast-forwarded” ( George Judson).
5. n. A temporary cessation.
6. n. A delay or suspended reaction, as from uncertainty; a hesitation: After a pause the audience broke into cheers.
7. n. A break, stop, or rest, often for a calculated purpose or effect: After a dramatic pause, the lawyer finished her summation.
8. n. Music A sign indicating that a note or rest is to be held.
9. n. A break or rest in a line of poetry; a caesura.
10. n. Reason for hesitation: The immensity of the task gives one pause.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A temporary stop or rest; a cessation or intermission of action or motion, as of speaking, singing, or playing.
2. n. A cessation proceeding from doubt or uncertainty; hesitation; suspense.
3. n. A break or rest in writing or speaking.
4. n. In musical notation: A rest, or sign for silence. See rest.
5. n. A fermata or hold, or indicating that a note is to be prolonged at the pleasure of the performer.
6. n. Stopping-place; conclusion; ultimate point.
7. n. In prosody, an interval in a succession of metrical times, corresponding to a time or times in the rhythm, but not represented by any syllable or syllables in the text. In ancient prosody a pause was called an empty time, and was measured, like a time, as a monosemic, disemic, trisemic, etc, pause. A monosemic pause was called a limma, a disemic pause a prosthesis. Pauses occur especially at the end of some rhythmical section, but are not admissible in thy interior of a word.
8. n. Synonyms Intermission, Rest, etc. See stop.
9. To make a temporary stop or intermission; cease to speak or act for a time.
10. To wait; tarry; forbear for a time.
11. To stop for consideration or reflection; deliberate: sometimes with upon before the object of consideration or deliberation.
12. To hesitate; hold back; be shy or reluctant.
13. Reflexively, to repose one's self; hence, to stop; cease from action.
14. To dwell; linger: with upon.
15. Synonyms and To stay, delay, tarry.

Wiktionary

1. v. To interrupt current work and do something else for a moment.
2. n. A short time for relaxing and doing something else.
3. n. alternative spelling of Pause (“a button that pauses or resumes something”).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A temporary stop or rest; an intermission of action; interruption; suspension; cessation.
2. n. Temporary inaction or waiting; hesitation; suspence; doubt.
3. n. In speaking or reading aloud, a brief arrest or suspension of voice, to indicate the limits and relations of sentences and their parts.
4. n. In writing and printing, a mark indicating the place and nature of an arrest of voice in reading; a punctuation point.
5. n. A break or paragraph in writing.
6. n. A hold. See 4th Hold, 7.
7. v. To make a short stop; to cease for a time; to intermit speaking or acting; to stop; to wait; to rest.
8. v. To be intermitted; to cease.
9. v. To hesitate; to hold back; to delay.
10. v. To stop in order to consider; hence, to consider; to reflect.
11. v. To cause to stop or rest; -- used reflexively.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a time interval during which there is a temporary cessation of something
2. n. temporary inactivity
3. v. cease an action temporarily
4. v. interrupt temporarily an activity before continuing