stoppages
British English workplace slang for the deductions taken out of your paycheck before you actually see it — think income tax, National Insurance, pension contributions, and anything else HMRC or your employer skims off the top.
Seen in the wild
Serie A | Cremonese 1-2 Lazio: Last gasp heartbreak for hosts https://www.europesays.com/italy/12974/ Cremonese were heartbroken in stoppages as Lazio turned the game around with Gustav Isaksen and Tijjani Noslin to…
Any unions out there organizing with other unions for prolonged work stoppages? You know, since denying our labor is the only weapon we have against capital.
Definitions
British English workplace slang for the deductions taken out of your paycheck before you actually see it — think income tax, National Insurance, pension contributions, and anything else HMRC or your employer skims off the top. When workers moan about their take-home pay not matching their salary, stoppages are the culprit. The word has a resigned, working-class flavor to it, implying that money is constantly being stopped from reaching your wallet by forces beyond your control.
He thought he'd landed a decent salary until he saw the stoppages — he was taking home barely two-thirds of the headline figure.
Comments
(UK) Salary deductions.
“Serie A | Cremonese 1-2 Lazio: Last gasp heartbreak for hosts https://www.europesays.com/italy/12974/ Cremonese were heartbroken in stoppages as Lazio turned the game around with Gustav Isaksen and Tijjani Noslin to…”
— Bluesky· May 2026“Any unions out there organizing with other unions for prolonged work stoppages? You know, since denying our labor is the only weapon we have against capital.”
— Bluesky· May 2026
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UK and Irish slang — Cockney, Scouse, Geordie, Yorkshire, Glaswegian, Brummie, Welsh, West Country, plus Irish English. Centuries of regional dialects feeding into modern British and Irish street talk.
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