cease fire

present singular third person ceases fire · participle present ceasing fire · participle past ceased fire · past ceased fire

1. governmentTo stop engaging in hostile acts, particularly those involving firearms.

plural cease fires

1. alternativeAlternative spelling of ceasefire.

   On August 4 there was a cease fire in Java, the battle had lasted all of two weeks.

   2004, R. Elizabeth Migliore, Evening Flower

   3 more examples

   I also encourage all of us to begin the cease fire in America's culture war by taking the initiative of inviting someone from the other camp to lunch.

   1996, Tom Sine, Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America's Culture Wars, page 280

   in El Salvador, they declared a cease fire after ten years. Why didn't they think of that at the beginning?

   1997, George Carlin, Brain Droppings, New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 73

   To date around eighteen armed cease fires have been agreed between the army and armed groups of the following ethnicities...

   2011, Jacob Bercovitch, Karl DeRouen Jr., Unraveling Internal Conflicts in East Asia and the Pacific, page 275