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
• charged
• electric
• electrifying
• exciting
• exhilarating
• exhilarative
• galvanic
• galvanizing
• hair-raising
• inspiring
• intoxicating
• kicky
• mind-bending
• mind-blowing
• mind-boggling
• rip-roaring
• rousing
• stimulating
• stirring
• thrilling

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

The official’s review and announcement that the basket occurred just a tenth of a second before the buzzer sounded took several heart-stopping minutes. —Tony Jones, New York Times, 27 Apr. 2025

That was a little heart-stopping, and was one of the things that Hayes talked about after the match. —Emily Olsen, New York Times, 8 Apr. 2025

His car flipped, landed on its roof and skidded to a halt in a harrowing, heart-stopping show of sparks and flames. —Mark Long, Chicago Tribune, 16 Feb. 2025

Running out of ammunition, Corbett swiftly borrowed a villager’s shotgun and delivered the final, decisive shot from a heart-stopping distance of just 20 feet. —Scott Travers, Forbes, 16 Jan. 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