What it means
A gobstopper is a hard, usually round sweet made to last ages in your mouth while the colours and flavours shift about. Classic British sweet-shop stuff. People also say it jokingly for anything that keeps someone's gob occupied, especially if you're trying to buy yourself five blessed minutes of silence from a chatty kid.
Usage examples
"Kid on the top deck kept chatting rubbish, so Nan dug out a gobstopper and handed it over. Peace and quiet till it finally cracked."
"Spent my whole pocket money on a gobstopper that somehow lasted the entire bus ride home."
"Give the little one a gobstopper and you'll get five glorious minutes of quiet, trust me on that."
"He'd been yapping all through the car journey, so his mum lobbed him a gobstopper and suddenly the whole motor went blissfully quiet."
"Got a gobstopper from the corner shop and nearly cracked a tooth trying to rush the thing. Rookie move, that."
Where it comes from
Gobstopper is solid old British English, built from gob for mouth and stopper for something that blocks it. The name was already around in the 19th century for those hard sweets meant to last forever. It later got an extra glow-up in pop culture with Wonka's Everlasting Gobstopper.
This expression also appears in
