moratorium
n. countablen. a temporary stop to a specific activity. It is often used when a government or group decides to pause something, like building or hunting, for a set amount of time.
n. a temporary prohibition of an activity or a legally authorised period of delay in the performance of an obligation. Often applied to debt repayments or the implementation of specific policies.
The government declared a moratorium on new oil drilling.
Environmental groups are calling for a five-year moratorium on deep-sea mining until more research is conducted on the ecological impact.
Following the economic crisis, the administration enacted a moratorium on home foreclosures to provide struggling families with a window of stability while they restructured their finances.
New Latin from Late Latin morātōrium, noun use of the neuter of morātōrius (“moratory, delaying”), from Latin moror (“I delay”), from mora (“delay”), from Proto-Indo-European *mere (“to delay, hinder”). See also moratory.
Often takes the preposition 'on' to specify the activity being stopped.
a moratorium for the projecta moratorium on the projectThe noun typically collocates with 'on' when identifying the subject of the suspension.