discontinue vs cease

discontinue is not a noun while cease is a noun.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
discontinue	No	No	Yes	No
cease	Yes	No	Yes	No

As verbs, discontinue and cease are synonyms defined as:

Other synonyms of discontinue include give up, lay off, quit, stop.

As verbs, cease is a hypernym of discontinue; that is, cease is a word with a broader meaning than discontinue:

discontinue: come to or be at an end
cease: have an end, in a temporal, spatial, or quantitative sense; either spatial or metaphorical

Other hypernyms of discontinue include end, finish, stop, terminate.

discontinue (noun)	cease (noun)
	(`cease' is a noun only in the phrase `without cease') end

discontinue (verb)	cease (verb)
prevent completion	put an end to a state or an activity
put an end to a state or an activity	have an end, in a temporal, spatial, or quantitative sense; either spatial or metaphorical
come to or be at an end