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discontinue

verb

Simple meaning

To stop making or offering something.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

dihskuhntinyoo

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

dɪskənˈtɪnju

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. transitive

    To interrupt the continuance of; to put an end to, especially as regards commercial productions; to stop producing, making, or supplying.

  2. transitive

    To consciously cease the ingestion or administration of (a pharmaceutical drug).

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C1 · Advanced
Frequency
Uncommon
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: To interrupt the continuance of; to put an end to, especially as regards commercial productions; to stop producing, making, or supplying.

Used this way, discontinue is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use discontinue

  • “The support from our sponsoring agency will discontinue after March 31.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Consciously

discontinue drug

Prevent

discontinue medication

Other combinations

discontinue treatmentdiscontinue therapydiscontinue nursingimmediately discontinuetemporarily discontinue

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • discontinuedadjectiveInflected form

    Stopped permanently or temporarily.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • discontinuitynounDerived noun · specialist

    Lack of connection or continuity.

  • discontinuationnounDerived noun

    The act of discontinuing or breaking off.

  • discontinuancenounDerived noun

    The act of discontinuing or breaking off.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: to interrupt the continuance of

keep

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.