Hinder

How to spell hinder

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hinder

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hinder mean?

1. verbTo make something slow or difficult; to obstruct or delay progress.

Hinder in a sentence

• Heavy traffic can hinder the morning commute for thousands of workers.

• Poor lighting will hinder the rescue team as they search the valley.

Where does hinder come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from Old English, where the verb hindrian meant 'to hold back, keep behind, or injure'. It was built on the older root hindan, meaning 'from behind' or 'at the rear', the same family that gives us 'hind' as in a deer's hind legs and 'behind' itself. The shared idea running through all of these is the position at the back, so to hinder someone was originally to hold them back, to keep them in the rear rather than letting them advance. Close relatives survive in German, where 'hinten' still means 'behind' and 'hindern' means 'to hamper', confirming the deep Germanic ancestry. The spelling has stayed remarkably steady for over a thousand years, with the everyday verb stressing the first syllable, while the rarer adjective meaning 'rear' or 'back' (as in the hinder parts) keeps the older long vowel.

How the word is built

• hind- (Old English hindan: from behind, at the back)
• -er (verb/comparative ending)