different between obstacle vs interference

English

Etymology

From Middle English obstacle, from Old French obstacle, from Latin obst?culum.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??bst?kl?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /??bst?kl?/
• Hyphenation: ob?sta?cle

Noun

obstacle (plural obstacles)

1. Something that impedes, stands in the way of, or holds up progress

   A big obstacle to understanding the manual was that it had been poorly translated from the Japanese.

Synonyms

• impediment
• hindrance
• hurdle
• barrier
• complication
• snag
• See also Thesaurus:hindrance

Translations

Anagrams

• Casebolt, costable

Catalan

Etymology

From Latin obst?culum.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic) IPA^(key): /ops?ta.kl?/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /ups?ta.kl?/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /ops?ta.kle/

Noun

obstacle m (plural obstacles)

1. obstacle

Derived terms

• obstaculitzar

Further reading

• “obstacle” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin obstaculum, from obst?

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p.stakl/

Noun

obstacle m (plural obstacles)

1. obstacle

Derived terms

• course d'obstacles
• faire obstacle
• saut d'obstacles

Further reading

• “obstacle” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Etymology

From interfere +? -ence. The sense in physics was likely introduced by Thomas Young, which he used as early as 1802 in a paper in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??nt???fi??ns/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /??nt??fi??ns/

Noun

interference (countable and uncountable, plural interferences)

1. The act of interfering with something, or something that interferes.
2. (sports) The illegal obstruction of an opponent in some ball games.

   They were glued to the TV, as the referee called out a fifteen yard penalty for interference.

3. (physics) An effect caused by the superposition of two systems of waves.
4. A distortion on a broadcast signal due to atmospheric or other effects.

   They wanted to watch the game on TV, but there was too much interference to even make out the score on the tiny screen.

5. (US, law) In United States patent law, an inter partes proceeding to determine the priority issues of multiple patent applications; a priority contest.
6. (chess) The interruption of the line between an attacked piece and its defender by sacrificially interposing a piece.
7. (linguistics) The situation where a person who knows two languages inappropriately transfers lexical items or structures from one to the other.

Antonyms

• noninterference

Derived terms

Translations