interrupt

To disturb or halt (an ongoing process or action, or the person performing it) by interfering suddenly, especially by speaking.

Noun

An event that causes a computer or other device to temporarily cease what it was doing and attend to a condition.
- The interrupt caused the packet handler routine to run.

Origin

From Middle English interrupten, derived from Latin interruptus, past participle of interrumpere (“to break apart/off, interrupt”), from inter (“between”) + rumpere (“to break”).

Verb

To disturb or halt (an ongoing process or action, or the person performing it) by interfering suddenly, especially by speaking.
- A maverick politician repeatedly interrupted the debate by shouting.
- Do not interrupt me in my course. - c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
- One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.” He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the...
To divide; to separate; to break the monotony of.
- The evenness of the road was not interrupted by a single hill.
To assert to (a computer) that an exceptional condition must be handled.
- The packet receiver circuit interrupted the microprocessor.