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Also, run into a brick wall. Encounter an insurmountable barrier to progress, as in We tried to get faster approval from the town and ran into a stone wall, or For Allan, learning a foreign language amounted to running into a brick wall.
American Heritage Idioms
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Phrase(s): run into a stone wall
Fig. to come to a barrier against further progress. • We’ve run into a stone wall in our investigation. • Algebra was hard for Tom, but he really ran into a stone wall with geometry.
McGrawhill's American Idioms And Phrasal Verbs