heart-stopping

adjective

heart-stop·​ping ˈhärt-ˌstä-piŋ 

: extremely shocking or exciting

a heart-stopping adventure

heart-stopping views

heart-stoppingly adverb

a heart-stoppingly suspenseful film

a heart-stoppingly beautiful view

Synonyms

• breathtaking
• exciting
• thrilling
• interesting

Examples of heart-stopping in a Sentence

the movie's climax is a heart-stopping chase through the streets of San Francisco

Recent Examples on the Web

Greengrass has always excelled at turning real-life horrors into heart-stopping movies, but this particular vision of Hell on Earth is on another level. —Kate Erbland, IndieWire, 6 Sep. 2025

Mount Carmel is back home after representing Illinois well in a heart-stopping 43-42 win over Moeller in Ohio. —Steve Millar, Chicago Tribune, 4 Sep. 2025

Hammarby only just qualified for the game against Manchester United with a heart-stopping victory over Metalist Kharkiv from Ukraine. —Asif Burhan, Forbes.com, 29 Aug. 2025

After two months of watching emperor penguin chicks in Antarctica, Bertie Gregory's drone captured a heart-stopping moment. —Doc Louallen, ABC News, 27 Aug. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1888, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for heart-stopping

• eavesdropping
• outcropping
• sharecropping
• chopping
• copping
• cropping
• dropping
• flopping
• hopping
• lopping
• mopping
• popping