run into a stone wall

Idioms  

1. Also, run into a brick wall. Encounter an insurmountable barrier to progress, as in We tried to get faster approval from the town and ran into a stone wall, or For Allan, learning a foreign language amounted to running into a brick wall.

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Example Sentences

Reporters have run into a stone wall trying to obtain key information about 2008.

From The Wall Street Journal

After lunch I was not anxious to return to work, for I was afraid that in trying to fit the keto forms into some new scheme I would run into a stone wall and have to face the fact that no regular hydrogen- bonding scheme was compatible with the X-ray evidence.

From Literature

Arguing that the risks were laid out in the prospectus also seems to have run into a stone wall.

From New York Times

Nitze and his colleagues had expected that the zero option would run into a stone wall in Geneva.

From Time Magazine Archive

For the C.I.O., the hard-boiled meat-packers union had carried the ball�and run into a stone wall.

From Time Magazine Archive