stymie means 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). It carries an Arena rating of 1811, earned across 87 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, stymie ranks #401 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #583 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words, #936 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #1,136 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound.
stymie is pronounced /ˈstaɪmi/.
Why “stymie” is a great word
STYMIE — [Noun/Verb] To thwart, stump, or obstruct, leaving one hopelessly puzzled or unable to proceed; also, the obstacle itself, originally from golf where an opponent's ball blocks the direct path to the hole. From Scots stymie, stimie ("person with poor eyesight"), from stime, styme ("the least bit, a glimmer"), as in the phrase 'not to see a styme,' alluding to the obstructed view of the hole in golf. First attested in golf in 1857. Unlike "impede," which merely slows progress, or "hinder," which suggests a temporary difficulty, to stymie is to enforce a total, confounding deadlock. It is the bureaucratic rule that voids your application, the elegant counterargument that stops your thought cold, or the single, untouchable piece that checkmates your entire strategy—a small, solid object that casts a very long shadow.
Etymology
From the meaning in golf (where the stymie ball blocks the other ball from "seeing" the hole), perhaps from Scots stymie, stimie (“person with poor eyesight”), from Scots stime (“the least bit”). Or from Scots styme (“tiny bit, glimmer”) as in se nocht ane styme (“not to see a glimmer (of something)”). If so, it is a doublet of stime.
noun
- 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).
- An obstacle or obstruction.e.g.“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:
verb
- To thwart or stump; to cause to fail or to leave hopelessly puzzled, confused, or stuck.e.g.“They had lost the key, and the lock stymied the first three locksmiths they called.”
- To bring into the position of, or impede by, a stymie.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.