All 5 Uses of
cease
in
The Screwtape Letters
- Finally, if all else fails, you can persuade him, in defiance of conscience, to continue the new acquaintance on the ground that he is, in some unspecified way, doing these people "good" by the mere fact of drinking their cocktails and laughing at their jokes, and that to cease to do so would be "priggish", "intolerant", and (of course) "Puritanical".†
Chpt 10cease = stop or discontinue
- There are some to whom "no passion is as serious as lust" and for whom an indecent story ceases to produce lasciviousness precisely in so far as it becomes funny: there are others in whom laughter and lust are excited at the same moment and by the same things.†
Chpt 11 *ceases = stops or discontinues
- And so it would have been but for our ceaseless labour.†
Chpt 16ceaseless = never-endingstandard suffix: The suffix "-less" in ceaseless means without and reverses the meaning of cease. This is the same pattern you see in words like harmless, fearless, and powerless.
- Under the influence of "love" he may still think himself unworthy of the girl, but he is rapidly ceasing to think himself unworthy of the others.†
Chpt 24ceasing = stopping or discontinuing
- It is after men have given in to the irremediable, after they have despaired of relief and ceased to think even a half-hour ahead, that the dangers of humbled and gentle weariness begin.†
Chpt 30ceased = stopped or discontinued
Definitions:
-
(1)
(cease) to stop or discontinue
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Note that the expression, cease fire means to stop doing battle such as firing funs at each other. Similarly, the noun, cease-fire, is a state of having stopped doing battle.