Definition of STYMIE

Did You Know?

Golf was being played in Scotland as early as the 15th century, but it wasn't until the 19th century that the sport really caught on in England and North America. It was also in the 19th century that the word stymie entered English as a noun referring to a golfing situation in which one player's ball lies between another ball and the hole on the putting green, thereby blocking the line of play. Later, stymie came to be used as a verb meaning "to bring into the position of, or impede by, a stymie." By the early 20th century, the verb was being applied in similarly vexing non-golf contexts.

Examples of stymie in a Sentence

Progress on the project has been stymied by lack of money. the raging blizzard stymied the rescuers' attempts to find the stranded mountain climbers

Recent Examples on the Web

Rescuers in the park's helicopter took advantage Thursday morning of a break in bad weather that had stymied earlier attempts to reach the climbers. — CBS News, "Helicopter rescues 4 climbers who were stranded near Mount Rainier summit for days," 6 June 2019 Those structures stymie evolution by denying advantageous mutations any chance to take over a population. — John Rennie, WIRED, "This Mutation Math Shows How Life Keeps on Evolving," 1 July 2018 The momentary pause on Heathrow's runways comes just a few weeks after a mysterious drone sighting stymied all air traffic at Gatwick Airport during the height of holiday travel for roughly 36 hours. — Sam Blum, Popular Mechanics, "Another Drone Sighting Shuts Down the UK's Busiest Airport," 8 Jan. 2019 The letter also names a PBS Newshour reporter whose story about political advertisements was completely stymied for fear of penalty. — Casey Newton, The Verge, "Facebook’s problems in Europe are piling up," 21 Sep. 2018 The Senate prepared Thursday to vote on two rival efforts to end the partial government shutdown, but the flurry of action wasn’t expected to immediately resolve the impasse that has stymied Washington for weeks. — Rebecca Ballhaus, WSJ, "Senate Prepares Votes on Measures to End Shutdown," 24 Jan. 2019 Some of the challenges that stymie high school teachers about their students have been around for generations. — BostonGlobe.com, "Students check their devices at the cellphone hotel," 1 June 2018 But those political realities that stymied Republicans in 2017 are still the same — and if anything, the terrain looks even more difficult now. — Dylan Scott, Vox, "6 reasons Obamacare repeal (probably) isn’t coming back in 2018," 30 Apr. 2018 And this means of stymying the Mueller investigation would be of lower salience than actually firing him while producing some similar benefits. — Matthew Yglesias, Vox, "Matt Whitaker suggested the attorney general might keep Robert Mueller’s conclusions secret forever," 7 Nov. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'stymie.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.