The AI-powered English dictionary
plural stymies
(golf) A situation where an opponent's ball is directly in the way of one's own ball and the hole, on the putting green (abolished 1952). examples
(by extension) An obstacle or obstruction. quotations examples
Mary, will you be mine? Shall we go round together? Will you fix up a match with me on the links of life which shall end only when the Grim Reaper lays us both a stymie?
1922, P. G. Wodehouse, The Clicking of Cuthbert
third-person singular simple present stymies, present participle stymieing or stymying, simple past and past participle stymied
To thwart or stump; to cause to fail or to leave hopelessly puzzled, confused, or stuck. quotations examples
It constrained governments, businesses and labour unions to collaborate in planning increased rates of output and the conditions likely to facilitate them. And above all, it blocked any return to the temptations that had so stymied the inter-war economy: under-production, mutually destructive protectionism, and a collapse of trade.
2005, Tony Judt, “The Rehabilitation of Europe”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010
I was making such a drama in my head it was stymieing me.
2007 January 21, Joyce Cohen, “Beauty in the Eye of the Renter”, in New York Times
In populations that have “burst” and “path” structures, for example, individuals can never occupy positions in the graph that their ancestors held. Those structures stymie evolution by denying advantageous mutations any chance to take over a population.
2018 July 1, John Rennie, “This Mutation Math Shows How Life Keeps on Evolving”, in Wired
For all his faults and grandstanding, however, Prescott genuinely cared - and his ambitious plans for tram schemes and railway extensions were stymied by lack of support from Downing Street.
2024 January 10, Christian Wolmar, “A time for change? ... just as it was back in issue 262”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 60
(golf) To bring into the position of, or impede by, a stymie. examples