roadblock

plural roadblocks

1. Something that blocks or obstructs a road.
2. figurativelyAn obstacle or impediment.

   to hit roadblocks

   4 more examples

   […] let’s get back to Earl, who had run into a roadblock in his desire to administer wedgies. As it turns out, underpants didn’t exist in the 18th century and without underpants, the whole wedgie business becomes a problem.

   2005, Annabelle du Fouet, “Toys for kinky girls and boys—It’s not just whips and chains anymore.” (chapter 3), in Weather Balloons Make Rotten Sex Toys, Ellora's Cave, →ISBN, page 53

   Transgender people face roadblocks in accessing healthcare, and it’s not going away even after archaic rules denying healthcare access to transgender people are lifted and more of us become insured.

   2015 September 16, Andy Marra, “Many trans people still are denied healthcare because of their identity”, in The Guardian

   America’s jobs recovery hit a major roadblock in August as the Delta variant threatened the labor market recovery, and the US economy added far fewer jobs than expected.

   2021 September 3, Anneken Tappe, “The August jobs numbers have economists worried. Here’s why”, in CNN

   Over the past decade, the products hit roadblocks. Siri ran into technological hurdles, including clunky code that took weeks to update with basic features, said John Burkey, a former Apple engineer who worked on the assistant.

   2023 March 15, Brian X. Chen, Nico Grant, Karen Weise, “How Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant Lost the A.I. Race”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: bar, drag, barrier, bone in the throat, bump in the road, hindrance, impediment, obstruction

present singular third person roadblocks · participle present roadblocking · participle past roadblocked · past roadblocked

1. idiomaticinformaltransitiveTo prevent, to hinder.