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give (someone) pause
Definition of give (someone) pause
: to cause (someone) to stop and think about something carefully or to have doubts about something I was going to ask her for help, but the look on her face gave me pause.
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Word by Word Definitions
giveplay
: to make a present of
: to grant or bestow by formal action
: to accord or yield to another
: capacity or tendency to yield to force or strain : flexibility
: the ability of a material to bend or stretch
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pauseplay
: a temporary stop
: a break in a verse
: a brief suspension of the voice to indicate the limits and relations of sentences and their parts
: to stop temporarily
: to linger for a time
: to cause to pause : stop
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