stymie

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   An obstacle or obstruction.

   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?

2. 2
   verb

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

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

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.

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