stonewall

Meanings

1. An obstruction.
2. A refusal to cooperate.
3. An alcoholic drink popular in colonial America, consisting of apple cider (or sometimes applejack) mixed with rum (or sometimes gin or whisky).
4. Alternative form of stone wall (“wall made of stone”).

1. To obstruct.
2. To refuse to answer or cooperate, especially in supplying information.

1. Certain, definite.

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

1. 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.
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).
4. Any of several places:
5. A town in Manitoba, Canada.
6. A former gold-mining town in California, in the Cuyamaca Mountains.
7. A town in Louisiana.
8. A town in Mississippi.
9. A town in North Carolina.
10. A town in Oklahoma.
11. An unincorporated community in Texas.
12. An unincorporated community in West Virginia.

Etymology

From Middle English stonwal, stone wall, stanewalle (“wall made of stone”), from Old English stānweall (“stonewall”), equivalent to stone + wall. The alcoholic drink (sense 3) was perhaps named thus because its effect was as potent as running into a stone wall.