roadblock

English

Etymology

From road +‎ block.

Noun

roadblock (plural roadblocks)

1. Something that blocks or obstructs a road.
2. (figurative) An obstacle or impediment.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:hindrance

   to hit roadblocks

   • 2015 September 16, Andy Marra, “Many trans people still are denied healthcare because of their identity”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     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.

   • 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^[2], →ISSN:

     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.

Translations

Something that blocks or obstructs a road

• Arabic: حَاجِز m (ḥājiz)

  South Levantine Arabic: حاجز m (ḥājez)

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 路障 (zh) (lùzhàng)

• Czech: silniční zátaras m
• Dutch: wegversperring (nl) f, wegblokkade (nl) f
• Esperanto: baraĵo, barilo (eo)
• Finnish: tiesulku (fi), este (fi)
• French: barrage routier m
• German: Absperrung (de) f, Straßensperre (de) f
• Hebrew: מחסום (he) m (makhsóm)
• Italian: blocco stradale m
• Indonesian: pembatas jalan, sekatan jalan raya
• Japanese: 道路封鎖 (どうろふうさ, dōro fūsa)
• Malay: sekatan jalan raya (ms)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: veisperring (no) m or f, vegsperring m or f

  Nynorsk: vegsperring f

• Polish: blokada (pl) f
• Romanian: blocaj (ro) n
• Russian: блокпо́ст (ru) m (blokpóst), (доро́жное) загражде́ние (ru) n (zagraždénije)
• Spanish: barrera vial f, barricada viaria f, retén (es) m (Honduras)
• Swedish: vägspärr (sv) c
• Thai: please add this translation if you can
• Turkish: please add this translation if you can
• Vietnamese: rào chắn (vi)

An obstacle or impediment

• Dutch: versperring (nl) f, obstakel (nl) n, tegenwerkende factor m
• Finnish: este (fi), hidaste (fi)
• German: Hindernis (de) n
• Indonesian: rintangan (id), halangan (id)
• Malay: sekatan (ms), halangan (ms)
• Russian: препя́тствие (ru) n (prepjátstvije), поме́ха (ru) f (poméxa), препо́на (ru) f (prepóna)
• Spanish: barrera (es) f

Verb

roadblock (third-person singular simple present roadblocks, present participle roadblocking, simple past and past participle roadblocked)

1. (colloquial, transitive) To prevent, hinder.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:hinder

Translations

to prevent, hinder

• Finnish: estää (fi)