▪ I. ˈstop-gap
[f. stop v. + gap n.1 (From the phrase to stop a gap: see gap n.1 2 b and 6 b.)]
† 1. An argument in defence of some point attacked. Obs.
| 1533 More Debell. Salem Wks. 986/2 But yet hath this good man one stoppe gappe for me stil, to proue alwai that mi sample is not lyke. |
2. Something that temporarily supplies a need; a makeshift. Also, of a person: One who temporarily occupies an office, etc. until a permanent appointment can be made.
| 1691 Shadwell Scowrers iv. i. 35 Reads. Yet I have sent you a bill for 250l. to receive... This won't do, but thou art a good Dad, 'tis a pretty Stop Gap. 1731 Fall of Mortimer i. i. 9, I hate your Stop-gaps; they were never good for England. 1774 Foote Cozeners i. Wks. 1799 II. 147, I must desire you to find out some other agent: I declare off! you sha'n't make a stop-gap of me! 1804 Collins Scripscrap. p. vi, A Bit or a Scrap often serves, as a Stop-gap, to fill up the Void of an idle Hour. 1827 Hare Guesses Ser. i. 1 Moral prejudices are the stopgaps of virtue. 1883 Athenæum 8 Sept. 299/1 Altogether his volume is merely a stopgap pending the appearance of the book which is to supersede Mill. 1911 J. H. Rose Pitt & Gt. War xx. 447 Addington soon made it apparent that he was no stop gap. |
3. An utterance intended to fill up a gap or an awkward pause in conversation or discourse.
| [1684: see 5.] 1707 J. Stevens tr. Quevedo's Com. Wks. (1709) 416 A Compliment..is the common Stop gap. [a 1764, 1885: see 5.] 1886 H. W. Lucy Diary Gladstone Parlt. 211 Besides, if he is ever at a loss for a word, he can always throw in ‘I am not one of those who’, or ‘I venture to say’. These stop-gaps..have been found very convincing. |
4. In physical sense: Something to stop up a hole. rare.
| 1872 Geo. Eliot Middlem. xli, A bit of ink and paper, which has long been an innocent wrapping or stop-gap, may at last be laid open under the one pair of eyes which [etc.]. |
5. attrib. passing into adj., with sense ‘filling a gap, pause, etc.’
| 1684 J. Lacy Sir H. Buffoon i. 5 There's my Ladies little Dog..; then a Horse stolen or stray'd... Then there's the old stop-gap Ditto; and these are for ever and ever the news of the Gazette. a 1764 Lloyd Ode to Genius 20 Vain every phrase in curious order set, On each side leaning on the (stop-gap) epithet. 1885 Proc. Amer. Soc. Psych. Research I. 312 (Cent.) The ‘well's’ and ‘ah's’, ‘don't-you-know's’, and other stop-gap interjections. 1885 J. Chamberlain Sp. 13 June 146 What will be known in history as the ‘Stop-gap’ Government. |
▪ II. stop-gap, v.
Brit. /ˈstɒpgap/, U.S. /ˈstɑpˌgæp/
[‹ stop-gap n.]
1. trans. To fill, fix, or attend to using a stopgap.
| 1918 Times 24 July 8/3 We have been stop-gapping situations from day to day. 1969E. Brathwaite in K. Ramchand & C. Gray West Indian Poetry (1972) 78 The wooden trap was chipped and chopped..And used to stop-Gap fences. 2001 Times (Shreveport, Lousiana) (Nexis) 30 Oct. 7 a, Council members beat around the budget bush, discussing the pros and cons of stop-gapping recurring city budget requirements with casino revenues. |
2. intr. To act as or use a stopgap; to fill a post or meet a need temporarily.
| 1918Proc. Gen. Comm. National Liberal Federation in Pamphlets & Leaflets for 1915–18 (Liberal Publ. Department) 76 Surely the women who are stop-gapping in the great standing industries and equipping the armies are fit to vote at 21. 1991 Times 5 Mar. 40/1 Then Honda took off and went to McLaren, and Williams stop-gapped with a Judd engine. 2004 N.Y. Mag. 7 June 24/1, I was living in Manhattan, stopgapping at a public-relations firm. |