Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To break the continuity or uniformity of.
  • intransitive verb To stop (someone engaged in an activity) by saying or doing something.
  • intransitive verb To cause an activity to stop by saying or doing something.
  • noun A signal to a computer that stops the execution of a running program so that another action can be performed.
  • noun A circuit that conveys a signal stopping the execution of a running program.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Gaping: spreading apart, as the sides of anything.
  • Irregular; interrupted.
  • Disturbed; interrupted.
  • To make a break or gap in; break the course or continuity of; hence, to break off; bring to a pause or cessation; hinder the continuation of.
  • To break in upon or disturb the action of; stop or hinder in doing something.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To break into, or between; to stop, or hinder by breaking in upon the course or progress of; to interfere with the current or motion of; to cause a temporary cessation of.
  • transitive verb To divide; to separate; to break the monotony of.
  • adjective obsolete Broken; interrupted.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb to disturb or halt an ongoing process or action by interfering suddenly.
  • verb computing To assert to a computer that an exceptional condition must be handled.
  • noun computing An event that causes a computer to temporarily cease what it was doing and attend to a condition

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb destroy the peace or tranquility of
  • verb terminate
  • verb make a break in
  • noun a signal that temporarily stops the execution of a program so that another procedure can be carried out
  • verb interfere in someone else's activity

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English interrupten, from Old French interrupte, interrupted, from Latin interruptus, past participle of interrumpere, to break off : inter-, inter- + rumpere, to break; see reup- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin interruptus, from interrumpere ("to break apart, break to pieces, break off, interrupt"), from inter ("between") + rumpere ("to break").

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Examples

  • The same applies when incoming phone calls interrupt your game.

    World of Apple 2009

  • Phone calls interrupt our workflow and are more time-consuming to deal with than emails; plus they don't allow the PR person to convey as much information as an email message.

    the tweney review 2008

  • But what we didn't have were a dozen other little chits keeping track of other conditions, and we had few "interrupt" - style powers that would trigger on other people's turns.

    Nuketown 2009

  • � HILLARD: � One street over, resident Valerie Goodman says the peacock calls interrupt her business calls.

    S. California Neighbors Cry Fowl Over Peacocks 2010

  • VIEW FAVORITES yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = '\'War criminal\' cat-calls interrupt Olmert speech '; yahooBuzzArticleSummary =' The world is continuing to voice its criticism of Israel\'s offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter.

    OpEdNews - Quicklink: 'War criminal' cat-calls interrupt Olmert speech 2009

  • OpEdNews - Quicklink: 'War criminal' cat-calls interrupt Olmert speech

    OpEdNews - Quicklink: 'War criminal' cat-calls interrupt Olmert speech 2009

  • Not to mention the annoyance of the phenomenon pretty much disabling my ability to actually use the phone properly, since incoming calls interrupt my apps, browsing, and anything else I'm doing at the time.

    RCR Wireless News Sen 2010

  • Not to mention the annoyance of the phenomenon pretty much disabling my ability to actually use the phone properly, since incoming calls interrupt my apps, browsing, and anything else I'm doing at the time.

    RCR Wireless News Sen 2010

  • One for an apparatus that can disable so-called interrupt masks within processors (Granted June 1996).

    TreoCentral 2009

  • If necessary, each interrupt source can have a unique piece of code, called the interrupt service routine (ISR) or interrupt handler, directly associated with it, to provide the required response action.

    Recently Uploaded Slideshows 2009

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