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I began to wonder what is the different nuance between using "Quit" and "Stop"

Quit looking at the police officer like that, that's rude.

or

Stop looking at the police officer like that, that's rude.

Which one that a native English speaker would use or widely used in their daily life ?

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    I don't see any difference. But (I might be wrong about this), "quit looking" seems to be used more often in BrE than AmE. Dec 14, 2013 at 9:53

1 Answer 1

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In the example you've given, I can't think of any discernable difference.

However, in other contexts, the words are not interchangeable. When dealing with motion, use stop:

You need to stop the car! (not: You need to quit the car!)

When dealing with habit-breaking, stop is acceptable, but quit is often the better word:

You need to quit biting your fingernails.

When leaving a place of employment, you normally quit the job, but you might stop working someplace. In other words:

How are things going at the restaurant?

Oh, I quit that job.

or:

How are things going at the restaurant?

Oh, I stopped working there.

Such differences in meaning are too numerous to exhaustively list here, but you can learn more by examining a dictionary. Collins is pretty good – see: quit; stop.

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