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To stop. Often followed by 'from'. 'Refrain' is usually used when speaking about human action.
"Please refrain from using your cell phone in the restaurant, ma'am."
Normally he would have made a Tom Arnold joke at a moment like that, but he was able to refrain from doing so.
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In a song, a verse that is repeated regularly and often. Applicable to anything repeated with frequency and regularity.
Also to avoid taking an action, usually with some conflict.
"We all lived in a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine, a yellow submarine..."
Jennifer Lopez refrained from firing her personal aid even though her aid had brought her the wrong kind of coke twice now.
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the command form of "to refrain", "to stop"
when you want someone to stop doing something you say:
"refraine"
a hand gesture adds to the emphasis
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A refraining order is when someone tells you not to say something to someone other than yourself.
Suzy: You better not comment on my sister's fat ass again. You're under a temporary 'refraining order' until we leave her house.
Jimmy: Yes dear.
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Tabrizi proverb (made famous by Qalandar of Tabriz)
To cease, desist, stop whatever it is you're saying or doing. A badass thing to say to someone when you want to lay the smackdown on them.
Maajid Nawaz, please to refrain. You being defecations.
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A legal document that makes you stop singing that same part of that song over and over again.
By the end of the hike, we were ready to slap Paul with a refraining order to get him to stop singing Mr. Jones.
An extremely esoteric nickname for cocaine. In the original lyrics to the Cole Porter classic showtune "I Get a Kick Out of You", the second verse begins is "Some get a kick from cocaine". As the years passed, that was changed to "Some like the bop-type refrain" so kids could continue to put on "Anything Goes" as a high-school musical.
People aware of this, wanting to demonstrate their cultural refinement and speak about cocaine, all while avoiding eavesdroppers and self-incrimination, replace the technical name of their drug of choice with "Bop-type Refrain" (or simply "Bop-type", though the later option brings with it a tremendous risk of losing your audience.)
Chris: I'm sick of referring to cocaine as "yatch". It's gone too mainstream.
Kevin: How about "Bop-type Refrain"?
Chris: What the - oh, I get it. I didn't know you were a devotee of musical theater.
Kevin: Eh, I know the Sinatra version.
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