Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com

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.


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

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

From The Wall Street Journal Aug. 3, 2018

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

From New York Times Apr. 23, 2011

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

From Time Magazine Archive

He would get so far, and every time it would be as if he had run into a stone wall.

From 100%: the Story of a Patriot by Upton Sinclair

"Anybody that charges you next October will think that he has run into a stone wall."

From Bob Hunt in Canada by George W. Orton

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 12,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training