Nonstop means without any pause or break. Straight through, from one end to the other.
Travel gave the word its plainest use, since a nonstop flight is one that lands only at the destination, and it is worth distinguishing from a direct flight, which keeps its number but may still touch down on the way. Away from airports it means continuous, so nonstop rain, nonstop talking and working nonstop are all common. It works as adjective and adverb both, and British English often writes it with a hyphen as non-stop.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)tewp-
Middle English
stoppen
English
stop
English, today
nonstop
Built from
From non- + stop. stop comes from Middle English stoppen. From Middle English stoppen, stoppien, from Old English stoppian (“to stop, close”), from Proto-West Germanic stoppōn, from Proto-Germanic stuppōną (“to stop, close”), stuppijaną (“to push, pierce, prick”), from Proto-Indo-European (s)tewp-, (s)tewb- (“to push; stick”), from (s)tew- (“to bump; impact; butt; push; beat; strike; hit”). Cognate with stq stopje (“to stop, block”), West Frisian stopje (“to stop”), Dutch stoppen (“to stop”), Low German stoppen (“to stop”), German stopfen (“to be filling, stuff”), German stoppen (“to stop”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål stoppe (“to stop”), Icelandic, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish stoppa (“to stop”), Middle High German stupfen, stüpfen (“to pierce”). More at stuff, stump.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA