What phrasal verb or expression is used to say “make a short stop”?
The phrasal verb stop by is generally used to mean “to visit someone briefly.” It seems you want to use it to mean a “short visit.” I would advise the following: If you say where you’re stopping by (i.e. the coffee shop), then you can fulfill the word’s definition. In other words, saying “I stopped by the coffee shop to get some coffee” would correlate with the definition “to visit someone briefly.” Even though you aren’t visiting someone per se, you are visiting something (a coffee shop). The main definition is, after all, “to visit [someone or something] briefly.” Truthfully, you can put anything in the brackets; the main idea is “to visit briefly.”
Also, if you leave out where you stopped by, it becomes ambiguous: Where did you stop by to get coffee? At your neighbor’s house? At the store? Saying where you stopped by removes any ambiguity.
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I made a quick stop on my way to work to buy coffee.
A quick stop is very used in American English.
We popped into [shop] to buy coffee. The Brits are always popping in and into places, for this meaning.
the idiom is: a quick stop, not a short stop.
You drop by a neighbor's house.
I'll stop off at the shops on my way home and get some wine. We're going to stop off in Denver for a couple of days before heading south.
Cambridge Dictionary
- I stopped by [your house or office] to you see you but you were out.
- I stopped off at the coffee shop to get coffee [on my way to work].
- I stopped in [to see you] but you were out.
- I stopped off to see you on my way home.
- I stopped off to buy gas and snacks and then resumed my trip to New York.
Phrasal: I swung by the coffee shop to get coffee. I stopped off to get coffee.
Alternatives are dropped in and dropped by as given by the Cambridge English dictionary. In British English both of these are more common than "stopped by". How common "dropped by" or "dropped in" are in American English I don't know.
In American English, we'll commonly use a borrowed term from car racing, i.e. "pit stop," to convey the brief stop you describe:
"pit stop" - noun
1 : a stop at the pits during an automobile race
2 a (1) : a stop (as during a trip) for fuel, food, or rest or for use of a restroom
Assuming the listener is familiar at all with car racing, he/she will understand the reference to a stop which is as brief as possible and focused only on fulfilling certain essential needs.