Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The act of hindering.
  • noun The condition of being hindered.
  • noun Something that hinders; an impediment.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun That which hinders or stops progression or advance; impediment; obstruction.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of hindering, or the state of being hindered.
  • noun That which hinders; an impediment.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Something which hinders: something that holds back or causes problems with something else.
  • noun The state or act of hindering something

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any obstruction that impedes or is burdensome
  • noun the act of hindering or obstructing or impeding
  • noun something immaterial that interferes with or delays action or progress

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English hindraunce, harm, from hindren, to hinder; see hinder.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From hinder +‎ -ance

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Examples

  • Another hindrance is the way the United States handles its customs administration, where uncertainty as to rate of duty and delay in getting goods through the customs often makes it impractical, if not impossible, for the businessman to ship his goods to that market.

    Business Action 1950

  • The old Buddhist manuals called that a hindrance — a hindrance is basically any story that you believe instead of what is actually happening.

    Shambhala SunSpace » 2009 » April 2009

  • The old Buddhist manuals called that a hindrance — a hindrance is basically any story that you believe instead of what is actually happening.

    Shambhala SunSpace » John Tarrant 2009

  • High prices of cellular data services have been the main hindrance to mainstream adoption of such services thus far.

    Smart Mobs » Blog Archive » Earthlink To Introduce WiFi Phones 2006

  • I would argue that a college campus, by virtue of the fact that it exists primarily to enable its students to learn freely and without hindrance, is entitled to put in place reasonable regulations to ensure that no one -- students, faculty members, staff, guests, or anybody who just happens to be wandering through at the time -- can impede the learning experience for those who are serious about it.

    April 2006 2006

  • E.H. Carr, Isaac Deutscher, the novelist Naomi Mitchison (a "silly sympathiser"), and J.B. Priestley all pursued very successful careers without, so far as we know, any hindrance from the British government.

    Orwell's List 2003

  • Patty Davis pointed that out, referring from the Pentagon that there is the very serious aspect of the debriefing of the crew that has to be done -- the formal process of actually hearing without any hindrance from the Chinese as to what took place, what may have caused this incident and who may truly be at fault for what happened.

    CNN Transcript Apr 11, 2001 2001

  • The introduction of row cropping necessary for this purpose appears to present no great long-term hindrance, as it usually takes place to make weed control easier.

    Chapter 9 1991

  • The most complete human being is he or she who consciously or unconsciously obeys the profound physical laws of our being in such a way that the spirit receives much help and as little hindrance from the body as possible.

    Married Love: or, Love in Marriage 1918

  • The hindrance is gone from my life, but a horror has entered it beyond the conception of any soul that has not yielded itself to the unimaginable influences emanating from an accomplished crime.

    The Filigree Ball 1903

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