[f. STOPPER sb.]
1. trans. Naut. To secure with a stopper.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine, II. (1780), Bosser le Cable, to stopper the Cable.
1834. Marryat, P. Simple, xv. Jump down, then, and see it [the cable] double-bitted and stoppered at thirty fathoms.
1883. Man. Seamanship for Boys, 234. The first reel-pendant is stoppered and hitched round the boom.
2. To close or secure (a bottle, etc.) with a stopper. Also with down.
1868. Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric. (1869), 441. The milk-can is filled full of milk, and so stoppered down that there is no room for the least motion to churn the milk.
1915. Morning Post, 21 June, 8/1. A quart bottle very carefully stoppered.
b. Metallurgy. (See quot.) Also with down.
1884. W. H. Greenwood, Steel & Iron, xx. § 770. The metal is run into the several moulds, which are each ‘stoppered’ … either with an iron plate, or simply by throwing on a shovelful of sand, which is then covered with an iron plate, wedged down [etc.]. Ibid., xx. § 809. The ingots are properly stoppered down, by throwing a shovelful of sand into the mould on the top of the still fluid metal, and then covering it with an iron plate fastened down by a cross bar [etc.].
3. To fit with a stopper.
1827. Faraday, Chem. Manip., xv. (1842), 361. The bottles should be wide-mouthed and accurately stoppered.
1860. Repert. Patent Invent., Dec., 443. Improvements in Closing or Stoppering Bottles, Jars, and other Receptacles.
1883. H. J. Powell, Glass-making, 73. The mouth of the vessel to be stoppered.
4. slang. To stop; to ‘put the stopper on.’
1821. Scott, Pirate, xxxix. Stopper your jaw, Dick, will you?
1905. Daily Chron., 24 April, 3/4. This elegant Cyril Wentworth, who gaily ‘stoppers’ men and women by the dozen if they happen to thwart him in the slightest degree.
