bump in the road
19
3.7
- idiom
- Informal
:
contratiempo
- This project has encountered a few bumps in the road, but we are still on track to finish on time.
- hit a bump in the road
- just a bump in the road
- little bump in the road
But as usual, there are always some bumps in the road.
- But as usual, there are always some bumps in the road.
- So this would have been the first significant bump in the road that it had in his professional career.
- It is very rare to find a long term successful relationship that did not come across some kind of bump in the road.
- And obviously writing these books, being on that show, obviously you've got this sort of slight bump in the road, but I'm sure you'll get for it.
- I, I tell people all the time here we talk about enslavement as though it, it were a bump in the road.
- The fact that it's handwritten doesn't invalidate it, but it makes it have more potential bumps in the road.
- It's literally just a bump in the road and you're literally going to succeed more than what you think you're capable of doing.
Examples
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I'm sorry about that little bump in the road before.
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We understood the situation, and we knew there were going to be bumps in the road.
Blog text (17) -
This is just another bump in the road.
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So that was a bit of a bump in the road.
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This is just the bump in the road.
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Just a bump in the road.
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You get one bump in the road and give up?
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I'll be glad to handle this bump in the road for your son.
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We've hit a bump in the road.
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The Nats have to hope this was a mere bump in the road and nothing more.
Blog text (23)
Synonyms
148
3.6
A problem that delays progress or makes things worse
37
4.2
A small problem that causes a delay
5
3.2
A problem that slows progress in a project
Antonyms
How Serious
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a minor difficulty or setback' is directly inferable from combining 'bump' (a small obstacle or jolt) with 'in the road' (on one's path toward a goal), mapping a literal small obstacle to a figurative setback. This journey/metaphor is cross-linguistically common and follows regular compositional logic, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would very likely understand it.
Etymology
Bump in the road comes from the simple image of hitting a small bump while driving on a road, which slows the car but does not stop the journey. So it means a 'minor difficulty' or 'setback'.