dejar de
ES [deˈxaɾ ðe] · Spanish for “to stop doing something” · literally “to leave off”
Dejar de puzzles English speakers, who hunt for a hidden word meaning stop. There isn’t one: dejar means to leave or let, so dejar de fumar is literally to leave off smoking. To a Czech this is second nature - zanechat does the very same job, and zanechat kouření leaves the cigarettes behind in exactly the same way.
Spanish dejar de + verb is how you say you have stopped doing something - dejar de fumar is to quit smoking. The literal sense gives it away: dejar means to leave or let, so dejar de is to leave off doing a thing. Czech reaches for the very same picture in zanechat něčeho, to leave off something, from nechat, to let or leave. The two aren't related words - Spanish dejar comes from Latin laxare, to loosen, while Czech nechat is home-grown Slavic - yet both landed on the identical metaphor: to stop is to leave a thing behind. English keeps a faded echo of it in leave off, though it mostly reaches for stop or quit. German doesn't share the picture at all - aufhören literally means to stop. So it is really Spanish and Czech that line up here, and a Czech gets the construction almost for free.