time stands still

time stands still

1. (Should we delete⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) Used to emphasize a moment in time that is either catastrophic or even enjoyable in which one's sense of time is frozen or suspended.
   • 1735, William Congreve, Plays ... In two volumes, page 39:

     Life without love is load; and time stands still; what we refuse to him, to Death we give, And then, then only, when we love, we live.

   • 1741, Mr. Theobald (Lewis), The Happy Captive, An English Opera:

     Each long moment seems a day, time stands still, when she's away.

   • 1828, Abner Kneeland (contributor), The Olive Branch and Christian Inquirer:

     When one event is continuous, time stands still; for we form no idea of time by the presence or continuance of a single event but we do so by the change of other events at the time.

   • 2004, Phil Condon, Montana Surround: Land, Water, Nature, and Place, Big Earth Publishing, →ISBN, page 52:

     In a good wild high-mountain storm, it would be a majestic ride through heaven and hell, a time-stands-still trip in a region of pure awe and undiluted fear.

2. Used to state that something, especially a place, has an archaic, anachronistic or historic feeling.
   • 1957, The Peabody Reflector:

     […] unconsciously and innocently succumb to the timeless paganism of a country where time stands still and the ancient ways of humanity know nothing about stock markets and finance capitalism.

   • 1972, The New Yorker:

     Travel by luxurious jet to a town where time stands still and the houses are festooned with bright streamers for the ancient Summer Star festival. Stay in a 17th-century ryokan (inn) and enjoy ham and eggs for breakfast.

   • 1984, Travel Holiday:

     If your visit to the time-stands-still village of Metsovo - high in the snowy mountains a couple of hours' drive due west of Kalambaka - is at Easter, you're in for a succession of special treats […]

   • 2004, Clifton W. Potter, Dorothy Bundy Turner Potter, Lynchburg: A City Set on Seven Hills, Arcadia Publishing, →ISBN, page 148:

     Every year since this bicentennial event, the batteaux have raced from Lynchburg to Richmond, easily slipping from one century back into another for a few glorious days when time stands still.

   • 2011 July 8, Time Out Guides Ltd, Time Out Barcelona 14th edition, Random House, →ISBN:

     Time stands still in this quiet little spot, with its quaint old-fashioned decor, swathes of lace and brown table linen.

   • 2016, Richard Panchyk, Hidden History of Long Island, Arcadia Publishing, →ISBN, page 30:

     Inside the smallest and plainest of the trio, a time-stands-still kind of sight awaits—different-sized gaskets hang from hooks on the wall, waiting patiently for more than half a century to be placed on machinery long gone.

   • 2024 March 5, Angela Correll, Restored in Tuscany: A True Story of Facing Loss, Finding Beauty, and Living Forward in Hope, Harvest House Publishers, →ISBN, page 16:

     I need a small Tuscan village where time stands still, where creativity can unfurl and my own soul can breathe.

• “time stands still”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.