- a complete, often abrupt stop: An average garbage truck does about a thousand stops a day—and they're hard stops, triggering the ABS.Whenever I make a hard stop on the court in these shoes, I come close to rolling an ankle.
- a definite, firm, usually immediate end to something: Oil industry leaders pressed for more action on pipelines and a hard stop to renewable energy tax credits.
- a nonnegotiable time at which someone must end an activity because of another engagement: I know some of you have a hard stop at 4:00 for another meeting, so I will keep my remarks brief.
- a mechanism or machine part that causes the movement of another part, or of the whole machine, to stop completely and abruptly: When you press the lever you should feel it bottom out against a hard stop, leaving it at a right angle to the hub axle.
- a selected stock price point programmed by a trader to generate an automatic order to sell or to close a trade, as opposed to the trader making this decision on the spot: I always use a hard stop, because otherwise a fast market can result in a much larger loss than planned.
- the act, by armed law enforcement officers, of compelling the driver of a vehicle containing suspects to stop: When his taxi was subjected to a hard stop by armed officers, he jumped out to discard a gun.
- a forced shutdown, as by turning off the power: If you hold the power button down for 10 seconds, you'll get a hard stop, but don't do it unless the computer won't turn off otherwise.
