Word Finder - obstacle

definition

Something that impedes, stands in the way of, or holds up progress

example

A big obstacle to understanding the manual was that it had been poorly translated from the Japanese.

It would remove the obstacle between you and your mate.

This friend had not considered it an obstacle to ordination.

There was no obstacle to the continued exercise of his firm and reasonable will.

The back of the greatest obstacle in the path of progress is broken.

The greatest obstacle to agriculture is lack of water.

The adoption issue that had been an obstacle for Carmen so long now appeared to be fair in her eyes.

Hopefully, hopefully, that would be the largest obstacle Evelyn faced in explaining the situation to her.

Despite being over six feet tall, Charles was no more of an obstacle than Jessi's small body.

You don't trash a marriage the first time an obstacle comes along.

Even Alex had to know that was a major obstacle.

On the electromagnetic theory, the problem of diffraction becomes definite when the properties of the obstacle are laid down.

Some mysterious obstacle intervened.

It was obviously no obstacle, considering you've got your coffee and your bed is empty.

Evelyn removed the obstacle from the door and snagged the tarantula cat as it darted past her.

In Italy public opinion as a whole was favorable to the visit, especially as it was not considered an obstacle to the projected increase of the army and navy.

To the south the rivulet of the Mance soon forms a formidable obstacle as its bed cuts its way through the sandstone.

The principal obstacle, however, was the incompatibility of the popes' Byzantine and Italian policies.

Their biggest obstacle is learning to appreciate their inner self as much as their outer shell.

The Po, however, forms somewhat of an obstacle, but is crossed by the main lines to Modena and Bologna near Mantua and Rovigo respectively.

Every obstacle was opposed to the collection of the taxes which had been voted to put the kingdom in a state of defence.

The delay, together with the proposal of John Jay, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs and commissioner to negotiate a commercial treaty with the Spanish envoy, to surrender navigation rights on the lower Mississippi for twenty-five years in order to remove the one obstacle to the negotiations, aroused so much feeling that General James Wilkinson and a few other leaders began to intrigue not only for a separation from Virginia, but also from the United States, and for the formation of a close alliance with the Spanish at New Orleans.

This uncertainty in the wheat crop extends to the southern limits of the higher plateau, and is a serious obstacle to the increased production of this cereal.

With ordinary horses, however, it is a good general rule to ride at fences of all descriptions as slowly as the nature of the obstacle admits.

This evidently prevents substances not intended for food getting into the mouth, as when the animal is engaged in gnawing through an obstacle.

The lowlands of Britain, with their partly Romanized and partly scanty population and their easy physical features, presented no obstacle.

Close support mobility tasks include deliberate countermine, gap crossing, complex obstacle breaching as well as route opening.

America was a strong force in helping to depose this indicted war criminal who was a major obstacle to progress.

The ground was treacherous underfoot, and the darkness turned even the smallest obstacle into a potential deathtrap.

After a major obstacle or event, a period out of the sport may be an appropriate way of revisiting the dream.

Many believe that if Iraq once again allows inspections it may create a substantial diplomatic obstacle between Bush administration hawks and an Iraqi invasion.

He finds himself facing a big obstacle in the shape of his prospective mother-in-law.

One recalls the speech in Dublin by a Tory politician who insisted that Irish neutrality was the greatest obstacle to Irish unity.

Phenomena of all kinds manifest themselves in the course of an analysis, which have the effect of posing an obstacle to the treatment.

Chicanes require road users to negotiate an obstacle, therefore encouraging them to slow down.

The rule of the bureaucracy remained an insurmountable obstacle, blocking the road toward socialism.

The legacy of Cyprus's divisive recent history, including bloody ethnic fighting, is a formidable obstacle.

Last night West Berkshire council gave planning consent to the project, removing the last bureaucratic obstacle to construction of the laser.

The issue of funding the action is still a major obstacle.

Third, I consider priestcraft and superstition the greatest obstacle to human improvement and happiness.

The first obstacle she came across was some different colored tarmac in the road.

Other aircraft should use the taxiways with extreme caution due to the reduced obstacle clearance.

Confidence was the main obstacle - and juggling workload and family.

Haydon in 1844, making good the route from Port Phillip to Gipps' Land with loaded drays, through a dense tangled scrub, which had been described by Strzelecki as his worst obstacle.

The arid nature of the trans-Caspian deserts has proved an insuperable obstacle to those rigorous methods of geodetic survey which distinguish Russian methods in Europe, so that Russian geography in central Asia is dependent on other means than that of direct measurement for the co-ordinate values in latitude and longitude for any given point.

Harbour improvements also are projected, but in Formosa, as in Japan proper, paucity of capital constitutes a fatal obstacle to rapid development.

Poisson brought forward as an objection to Fresnel's theory that it required at the centre of a circular shadow a point as bright as if no obstacle were intervening.

The results in the second case show that an increase of aperture up to that corresponding to an extreme aberration of half a period has no ill effect upon the central band (§ 3), but it increases unduly the intensity of one of the neighbouring lateral bands; and the practical conclusion is that the best results will be obtained from an aperture giving an extreme aberration of from a quarter to half a period, and that with an increased aperture aberration is not so much a direct cause of deterioration as an obstacle to the attainment of that improved definition which should accompany the increase of aperture.

Even then, however, the liquid nature of the substance, though advantageous in one or two directions, constituted a serious obstacle to its safe transport and storage and to its efficient employment; it was therefore not until Nobel produced plastic solid preparations by mixing the liquid with porous substances, such as gunpowder, or carbon and sulphur, and finally kieselguhr in a fine state of division, capable of absorbing and retaining considerable quantities of it, that it could be employed as a blasting agent (see Explosives, Dyna Mite, Cordite).

The events of the day indeed clearly indicated that the enemy's underwater devices were an even more serious obstacle to the forcing of the Dardanelles than were the Ottoman batteries.

As one obstacle after another was surmounted, as one grand division of the work after another became an accomplished fact, the effect upon Parkman's condition seems to have been bracing, and he acquired fresh impetus as he approached the goal.