stonewall

noun

1. (idiomatic)An obstruction.

   “That was what was causing the Government to hesitate in bringing down the Bill. There would be so many amendments proposed, and so many stonewalls erected, that much time would be occupied, and, that being so, he felt he must go on with other business first.”

   “[…] I suddenly realized that here was the opening I had been searching for and perhaps even the possibility of striking a great blow, a blow perhaps powerful enough to shatter her stonewall defence, be it sane or insane.”

   “Our conversation took place in a sort of no-man's land of irregular French. M. Crèspy's patois and Midi twang battled for meaning against my stonewall classroom phrases.”

2. (idiomatic)A refusal to cooperate.

   “If it was in order to use the word "stonewalling," I would say your stonewall has come to an end; but it is not in order. I would suggest that we bring the proceedings to an end decently, and if the obstruction is not to go on, then I think the proper thing for me to do is to move the ordinary motion, that the House do now adjourn, and let it go without any further talk.”

   “"Okay," I said sarcastically, while inside wondering what she was picking up on. / "Anyway," she said, sensing my stonewall, "I was just checking out the Pine Needlers' Facebook Page again, and you guys are killing it. Killing it with kindness as they say."”

3. (historical, idiomatic)An alcoholic drink popular in colonial America, consisting of apple cider (or sometimes applejack) mixed with rum (or sometimes gin or whisky).

   “[W]e are at a loss to "calculate" the ingredients which enter into such mysterious compounds as "apple-jack," "white nose," "stonewall," chain-lightning," "railroad," "rattle-snake," "back-straightener," "corpse-reviver," "moral suasion," "bottomless-pit," "sabbath-calm," etc.”

   “One highly imaginative account claims the throng told stories through the night in drunken outbursts of wild revelry. As if quoting from a house menu of early American alcoholic drinks, rather than reporting an eyewitness account, this version tells us they "guzzled nobly of punch, of flip, and downed the inevitable stonewalls [a mixture of whiskey or rum and cider]."”

   “When members of the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia's City Tavern, they […] ordered, one must assume, a broad variety of drinks, such as the mimbo (shavings from a sugarloaf, rum and water), the sling (two parts water to one part rum), the bombo (which uses molasses instead of sugar, rum and water), the punch, or the calibogus (spruce beer and rum), a flip, a blackstrap (a mix with molasses), or a stonewall (a mix with cider).”

4. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of stone wall (“wall made of stone”).

   “The grass looks tempting, and the stonewalls seem built to jump; but the farther west we get, the more rugged become the hillsides and the more broken the beds of the stream, till the scene becomes more akin to the home of the chamois than of the fox. The stonewalls grow higher, stronger, and more frequent, as you rise from the low country and get more fully among the sheepwalks.”

   “Stonewalls have been rebuilt along the piked portion of Taneytown road, along the east end of North Confederate avenue, and along Taneytown road south of Pleasonton avenue.”

   “In the present day, New England's stonewalls are the lineaments of her former agrarian vitality. They outline what used to be farm roads, fields, barnyards, pens, cellars, dooryards, empoundments, millraces, bridges, culverts, and graves. […] Stonewalls both preserve and evince the structuring presence of the past. They offer weft to the warp of the land.”

   “Some had suggested that they build sloped stonewalls the entire length of the streambed. The stonewalls would keep the rushing water in a channel and prevent soil from washing away from the streambed walls.”

   “There are remnants of a stonewall at the elm tree on Burrough Road. The aerial photograph shows the existence of a stonewall at the elm tree at least in 1964.”

5. (alt-of)Alternative letter-case form of stonewall (“alcoholic drink”).

   “Try one of the inn's specialties from the old days — a Coow Woow (pronounced coo-woo), a 17th-century drink made with ginger brandy and rum on crushed ice; or a Stonewall, which is a century older — gin and applejack over ice cubes.”

   “A Stonewall? That's a man's drink, ma'am. It's hard cider—cider wine at about six-and-one-half percent alcohol with rum added. Quite powerful.”

verb

1. (transitive)To obstruct.

   “Either the thing to be stonewalled must be itself a bad thing, or it must be stonewalled as the only means of preventing some other wrong being committed; obviously, paying the public creditor was no wrong, and the budget, if wrong, could be effectually obstructed by stonewalling the financial resolutions.”

2. (ambitransitive, informal)To refuse to answer or cooperate, especially in supplying information.

   “At the press conference, the Prime Minister appeared to be stonewalling when asked about tax increases.”

   “Even so, the rematch was a cliffhanger. It was marked by Kasparov’s increasing anger and frustration at the behaviour of IBM, which stonewalled against his requests for printouts of the machine’s logs of completed games.”

   “Two weeks later, they said they were unable to provide answers and politely passed on the opportunity to talk to me. / It’s unclear why they stonewalled me; maybe the recent lawsuits have executives tight-lipped.”

   “The silence that follows begins to feel awkward. It's one of several moments where Yaccarino stonewalls.”

adj

1. (British, not-comparable)Certain, definite.

   “Fortune favoured the fortunate when Martin Atkinson ignored a stonewall penalty.”

   “[Neil] Lennon also pointed to a booking for Niall McGinn for diving as a stonewall penalty to add to his grievances.”

name

1. (historical)A series of riots in 1969 New York City, beginning with the patrons of the gay bar "The Stonewall Inn" resisting police arrest, which marked the beginning of the militant gay rights movement.

   “Stonewall means fighting back.”

2. A nickname of Confederate general Thomas Jonathan Jackson.
3. A formation in chess (a variation of the Queen's Pawn Game) in which white plays pawns to d4 and several other positions, requiring black to react energetically (see Stonewall Attack).

   “the Stonewall attack, a Stonewall setup, a Stonewall formation”

4. Any of several places:
5. Any of several places:
6. Any of several places:
7. Any of several places:
8. Any of several places:
9. Any of several places:
10. Any of several places:
11. Any of several places: