Meaning & use
stymie
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Meaning
verbtransitive
To stop someone or something from making progress by putting an obstacle in the way.
Grammar: Always takes an object: the delay stymied the project. It is often used in the passive: we were stymied.
Patterns
- stymie someone
- stymie something
- be stymied by something
A lack of funding stymied the research team.
Heavy snow stymied our plans to drive north.
Critics say the new rules will stymie small businesses.
Word forms
| third person singular | stymies |
|---|---|
| past tense | stymied |
| past participle | stymied |
| -ing form | stymieing |
Common combinations
- stymie efforts
- Political fighting stymied efforts to pass the budget.
- stymie progress
- Old software can stymie progress in a company.
- be stymied by
- The detectives were stymied by a lack of evidence.
- stymie growth
- High rents may stymie growth in the neighborhood.
- stymie an investigation
- Missing records stymied the investigation.
Synonyms and how they differ
- thwart
- Thwart suggests someone deliberately frustrates a plan, while stymie can be caused by circumstances as well.
- hinder
- Hinder means to slow something down, whereas stymie often means to block it almost completely.
- foil
- Foil usually means defeating a plan, often a bad one, so it sounds more dramatic than stymie.
- hamper
- Hamper implies making progress difficult, but not blocking it as fully as stymie does.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: stymie or stigma?
stymie vs stigma
Stigma is a mark of shame attached to something, and it is not a verb meaning to block. Their spellings and sounds are somewhat close.
Practice
A shortage of skilled workers has ____ the factory's plans to expand.
Choose one answer.
Stymied means blocked progress, which fits a shortage that harms plans. The other verbs would suggest the shortage helped the expansion.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “stymie”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.