(bridge) a playing card with a value sufficiently high to insure taking a trick in a particular suit; "if my partner has a spade stopper I can bid no trump"
close or secure with or as if with a stopper; "She stoppered the wine bottle"; "The mothers stoppered their babies' mouths with pacifiers"
the great circle representing the apparent annual path of the sun; the plane of the Earth's orbit around the sun; makes an angle of about 23 degrees with the equator; "all of the planets rotate the sun in approximately the same ecliptic"