Stymie just one way to tee off golfer

Language purists may contend that “stymie” more precisely belongs in a headline about golf, rather than baseball.

Historians tell us that it came into English in the mid 1800s as a "condition in which an opponent's golf ball blocks the hole," according to Dictionary.com

The word probably came from the Scottish word spelled the same way, which meant a person who is partially blind, according to Webster’s. The logic for the golf term likely came from the idea that the opponent’s ball prevented clear sight of the hole.

It wasn’t until 1902 that the word gained its general sense of “block, hinder, thwart,” according to Dictionary.com.

Many a golfer contending with water hazards and sand traps may think the word’s general sense is also quite apt.

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