stymie

English

Alternative forms

• stimy, stymy

Etymology

Originally from golf, perhaps from Scots stymie, stimie.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• IPA^(key): /ˈstaɪmi/
• Rhymes: -aɪmi

Noun

stymie (plural stymies)

1. (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).
2. (by extension) An obstacle or obstruction.

Verb

1. To thwart or stump; to cause to fail or to leave hopelessly puzzled, confused, or stuck.

   Synonyms: block, thwart

   They had lost the key, and the lock stymied the first three locksmiths they called.

   • 2005, Tony Judt, “The Rehabilitation of Europe”, in Postwar: A history of Europe since 1945, London: Vintage Books, published 2010, →ISBN:

     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.

   • 2007 January 21, Joyce Cohen, “Beauty in the Eye of the Renter”, in New York Times‎^[1]:

     I was making such a drama in my head it was stymieing me.

   • 2018 July 1, John Rennie, “This Mutation Math Shows How Life Keeps on Evolving”, in Wired‎^[2]:

     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.

2. (golf) To bring into the position of, or impede by, a stymie.

Translations

to thwart or stump

• Catalan: empallegar (ca), destorbar (ca), contrariar (ca), travar (ca), bloquejar (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 阻礙／阻碍 (zh) (zǔ'ài), 阻碍 (zh) (zǔ'ài)

• Dutch: belemmeren (nl), ten val brengen, hinderen (nl)
• Finnish: nujertaa, lannistaa (fi)
• French: obstruer (fr), mettre en échec
• German: lahmlegen (de)
• Greek: ματαιώνω (el) (mataióno)
• Hungarian: meghiúsít (hu)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Irish: déan idirluí ar, caoch
• Italian: ostacolare (it), ostruire (it), intrigare (it), mettere in ginocchio
• Japanese: 追い詰める (おいつめる, oitsumeru)
• Maori: kaiwaenga
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: dekke (no), sette i en vanskelig stilling

  Nynorsk: dekkje, setje i ei vanskeleg stilling

• Portuguese: impedir (pt)
• Russian: загоня́ть в у́гол impf (zagonjátʹ v úgol), загна́ть в у́гол pf (zagnátʹ v úgol), ста́вить в тупи́к (ru) impf (stávitʹ v tupík), поста́вить в тупи́к pf (postávitʹ v tupík)

Further reading

• stymie on Wikipedia.Wikipedia