halt

grind to a halt/standstill

if an organization, system, or process grinds to a halt, it stops working, usually because of a problem. If the computer network crashed, the whole office would grind to a halt.

See also: grind

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call a halt (to something)

to stop something. When the rain got very heavy, the referees called a halt to the game.

See also: call

grind to a halt

to slowly come to a stop. Traffic on the interstate almost ground to a halt today because it was so foggy. The strike has caused production of new cars to grind to a halt.

See also: grind