[Sashimister]

Originally Posted by KyleGoetz

I've got a question about the three readings of 止める that I know of: やめる、とめる、とどめる

In this case, とめる is to stop the physical movement of an object, right? 車をとめる、自転車をとめる are OK. What about ボールをとめる?

ボールをとめる is perfectly natural. Anything moving or operating is "tomerable"; cab, clock, water, gas, TV, traffic, bleeding, pain, breathing, person, etc.

やめる is to stop, what, an action? 会議をやめる? ミーティングをやめる?

やめる is more complicated. It's often used to say "stop an action" as well.

会議をやめる can mean two different things.
1. to stop a meeting in the middle of it.
2. to cancel a meeting that has been scheduled
I would say more people would think of #2 when they hear 会議をやめる without any context.

やめる often connotes "call off", "give up" or "abolish". Things one can やめる are: war, strike, smoking, death penalty, a bad habit, talking where one shouldn't be talking, etc.

How would you distinguish it from とどめる then? “とどめる”の検索結果（62 件）：英辞郎 on the Web：スペースアルク There it looks like とどめる is exclusively used to refer to minimizing effects and stuff like that.

Am I correct? Thanks!

とどめる is very different from the other two. It's most often used to mean "keep something within a limit", followed probably by "to retain the original form".

被害を最小限にとどめる <-- Many native speakers would give you this as an example. You will often hear it in the news.

ここは昔森だった。現在は住宅地になっており、その原 型をとどめていない。
This area used to be a forest. It is now a residential area and nothing remains to remind us of what it used to be.

EDIT: Forgot to mention that I don't think good writers use the kanji to write とどめる.