stop someone in their tracks

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stop someone in their tracks (third-person singular simple present stops someone in their tracks, present participle stopping someone in their tracks, simple past and past participle stopped someone in their tracks)

1. (idiomatic) To prevent someone from continuing along a path or way, literal or figurative, he has begun going along.
   • 2021 December 1, Nigel Harris, “St Pancras and King's Cross: 1947”, in RAIL, number 945, page 36:

     This magnificent picture really stopped me in my tracks when I stumbled across it. I was drawn inexorably and immediately into the compelling detail discernible on this top-quality image.