[f. STOP v. + GAP sb.1 (From the phrase to stop a gap: see GAP sb.1 2 b and 6 b.)]
† 1. An argument in defence of some point attacked. Obs.
1533. More, Debell. Salem, Wks. 986/2. But yet hath this good man one stoppe gappe for me stil, to proue alwai that mi sample is not lyke.
2. Something that temporarily supplies a need; a makeshift. Also, of a person: One who temporarily occupies an office, etc., until a permanent appointment can be made.
1691. Shadwell, Scowrers, IV. i. 35. Reads. Yet I have sent you a bill for 250l. to receive.… This won’t do, but thou art a good Dad, ’tis a pretty Stop Gap.
1731. Fall of Mortimer, I. i. 9. I hate your Stop-gaps; they were never good for England.
1774. Foote, Cozeners, I. Wks. 1799, II. 147. I must desire you to find out some other agent: I declare off! you sha’n’t make a stop-gap of me!
1804. Collins, Scripscrapologia, p. vi. A Bit or a Scrap often serves, as a Stop-gap, to fill up the Void of an idle Hour, when Entertainment of more Pith and Moment is not immediately at Hand.
1827. Hare, Guesses, Ser. I. 1. Moral prejudices are the stopgaps of virtue.
1883. Athenæum, 8 Sept., 299/1. Altogether his volume is merely a stopgap pending the appearance of the book which is to supersede Mill.
1911. J. H. Rose, Pitt & Gt. War, xx. 447. Addington soon made it apparent that he was no stop-gap.
3. An utterance intended to fill up a gap or an awkward pause in conversation or discourse.
[1684: see 5.]
1707. J. Stevens, trans. Quevedo’s Com. Wks. (1709), 416. A Compliment … is the common Stop gap.
[a. 1764, 1885: see 5.]
1886. H. W. Lucy, Diary Gladstone Parlt., 211. Besides, if he is ever at a loss for a word, he can always throw in ‘I am not one of those who,’ or ‘I venture to say.’ These stop-gaps … have been found very convincing.
4. In physical sense: Something to stop up a hole. rare.
1872. Geo. Eliot, Middlem., xli. A bit of ink and paper, which has long been an innocent wrapping or stop-gap, may at last be laid open under the one pair of eyes which [etc.].
5. attrib. passing into adj., with sense ‘filling a gap, pause, etc.’
1684. J. Lacy, Sir H. Buffoon, I. 5. There’s my Ladies little Dog…; then a Horse stolen or stray’d…. Then there’s the old stop-gap Ditto; and these are for ever and ever the news of the Gazette.
a. 1764. Lloyd, Ode to Genius, 20. Vain every phrase in curious order set, On each side leaning on the (stop-gap) epithet.
1885. C. S. Minot, in Proc. Amer. Soc. Psych. Research, I. 312 (Cent.). The ‘Well’s’ and ‘Ah’s,’ ‘Don’t-you-know’s,’ and other stop-gap interjections.
1885. J. Chamberlain, Sp., 13 June, 146. What will be known in history as the ‘Stop-gap’ Government.
