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Pause vs Atop - What's the difference?

pause | atop |

As a verb pause

is to interrupt an activity and wait.

As a noun pause

is a temporary stop or rest; an intermission of action; interruption; suspension; cessation.

As a preposition atop is

on the top of.

As an adverb atop is

on, to, or at the top.

pause

English

Verb

(paus)
  • To interrupt an activity and wait.
    • When telling the scary story, he paused for effect.
  • * (William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
    • Tarry, pause a day or two.
  • * (John Milton) (1608-1674)
    • pausing while thus to herself she mused
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
    • , chapter=15 citation , passage=She paused and took a defiant breath. ‘If you don't believe me, I can't help it. But I'm not a liar.’ ¶ ‘No,’ said Luke, grinning at her. ‘You're not dull enough!
  • To hesitate; to hold back; to delay.
  • * (William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
    • Why doth the Jew pause ? Take thy forfeiture.
  • To halt the play or playback of, temporarily, so that it can be resumed from the same point.
    • to pause a song, a video, or a computer game
  • (obsolete) To consider; to reflect.
  • * (William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
    • Take time to pause .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A temporary stop or rest; an intermission of action; interruption; suspension; cessation.
  • * , chapter=23
    • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=If the afternoon was fine they strolled together in the park, very slowly, and with pauses to draw breath wherever the ground sloped upward. The slightest effort made the patient cough. He would stand leaning on a stick and holding a hand to his side, and when the paroxysm had passed it left him shaking.}}
  • A short time for relaxing and doing something else.
  • Hesitation; suspense; doubt.
  • * (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)
    • I stand in pause where I shall first begin.
  • In writing and printing, a mark indicating the place and nature of an arrest of voice in reading; a punctuation mark.
  • A break or paragraph in writing.
  • * (John Locke) (1632-1705)
    • He writes with warmth, which usually neglects method, and those partitions and pauses which men educated in schools observe.
  • (as direct object) take pause': hesitate; give ' pause : cause to hesitate

    • atop

    English

    Preposition

    (English prepositions)
  • On the top of.
    • He sat atop the mountain, waiting for the end of the world.
  • * 1966 , The Minnesota Review , vol. 6, page 242
    • A virtue is made out of a necessity, with the child feeling far more atop and master of his oddness, his behavior now deliberate or even clever.
  • * 2006 , Dewey Lambdin, The Gun Ketch , page 48
  • *:"And other things," she echoed, nodding slowly and resting her body a little more atop him again.
  • * 2014, (Paul Salopek), Blessed. Cursed. Claimed. , National Geographic (December 2014)[http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2014/12/pilgrim-roads/salopek-text]
    • “Monotheism was born here,” Goren tells me atop a cliff overlooking the sheet of iron-colored water.
  • On the top, with "of".

    • Usage notes

    "Atop of" was formerly much more commonly used than now.

    Derived terms

    * thereatop

    Synonyms

    * on top * ontop (mainly US)

    Adverb

    (-)
  • On, to, or at the top.
  • * 1909 , William Dean Howells, Seven English Cities , Kessinger Publishing 2004, p. 46:
    • He has a handsome face, still bearded in the midst of a mostly clean-shaving nation, and with the white hairs prevalent on the cheeks and temples; his head is bald atop , though hardly from the uneasiness of wearing a crown.
  • * 1978 , James C. Humes, Speaker's Treasury of Anecdotes About the Famous , Harper & Row 1978, p. 102:
    • The envoy found the French king playing the part of horse while his young son rode atop .