This term, originally from golf, is best spelled “stymie.” It can function as a noun {a serious stymie}, but more commonly it’s a verb — e.g.:
o “Danielle Odom brings quiet pathos to the damaged little girl — though the tongue-twisting lines she’s handed once she arrives in heaven would stymie virtually any child actor.” Everett Evans, “‘Slavs!’ Has Some Peaks but Falls Short of ‘Angels,'” Houston Chron., 15 Sept. 1995, Houston §, at 1.
o “These puzzlements stymie many investors.” Reed Abelson, “To Find New-Issue Players, Use a Scorecard,” N.Y. Times, 17 Sept. 1995, § 3, at 1.
*Invariably inferior forms.
For information about the Language-Change Index click here.
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Quotation of the Day: “Error is never so difficult to be destroyed as when it has its root in Language.” Jeremy Bentham (as quoted in C.K. Ogden & I.A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning xxiv (8th ed. 1946)).
