Either spatial or metaphorical

• Prevent completion
• Birth-control campaigner who in 1921 opened the first birth control clinic in London (1880-1958)
• Check the expansion or influence of
• Cause to stop
• Hold back, as of a danger or an enemy
• Have end in a certain location
• Stop from happening or developing
• Steplike excavations

Wiktionary Word definitions in Wiktionary
n. (plural of stope English)