In French, to stop is arrêter, which gives us “to arrest” in English. When a cop arrests someone, they’re stopping them from moving – or doing something they shouldn’t be doing.
Hebrew uses the same word – לעצור – for both to stop and to arrest, as in:
השוטר עצר את החשוד.
The cop arrested the suspect. (both the cop and the suspect in this example are males)
And so the suspect is now עצור – arrested, or literally, stopped. If the suspect is female, she’s עצורה, as in:
היא עצורה בחשד לגניבה.
She is arrested under suspicion of theft.
To arrest – לעצור – is a simple verb.
