1641 T. Heywood Machiavels Ghost sig. C3^v He..waking, found not his Patent sealed, dyed with an obstructing or stopping at the great Seale, and made no Will, as his predecessors did.

1658 Mercurius Politicus No. 437. 909 All which undue practices are tending to the retarding and obstructing of publick proceedings.

1817 Cobbett's Weekly Polit. Reg. 32 37 One of the crimes..was the obstructing of petitions.

1905 Westm. Gaz. 26 June 2/3 Any signal which would warn the offender and interfere with the intention of the detective would come within the definition of obstructing.

1938 Psychoanal. Q. 59 The impeding of excretion by the obstructing of the cloaca..may have led to pleasurable sensations in which the female was able to find a substitutive solace.

1649 J. Milton Εικονοκλαστης xxvii. 223 This is mischeif without remedy, a stifling and obstructing evil that hath no vent.

1661 S. Pordage Mundorum Explicatio ii. 246 Upon his back, his harder skin grew soft, And his dimn'd eyes obstructing scales had dof't.

1710 T. Fuller Pharmacopœia Extemporanea 180 The Eliquation..of..obstructing Phlegm.

1787 H. J. Pye Faringdon Hill (ed. 2) i. 24 Then through the obstructing hill, and o'er the vale, Like Egerton conduct the swelling sail.

1859 Newton's London Jrnl. Arts & Sci. 9 115 The pressure of the wheel-flange will tend to crush any obstructing substance upon the chairs.

1897 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. III. 794 The obstructing agent may be..a peritoneal adhesion by which a loop of bowel is snared.

1968 J. Howkins Shaw's Textbk. Operative Gynæcol. (ed. 3) xvi. 306/2 The expert at vaginal hysterectomy can convert the difficult operation into a relatively easy one..by removing the obstructing myoma by morcellation and vaginal myomectomy.

1990 Internat. Jrnl. Epidemiol. 19 913/2 Men with either hard plaques or obstructing atheromas had significantly higher mean pack-years of smoking than men with intimal-medial thickening only.

1889 ‘A. Thomas’ That Other Woman III. vi. 96 Two or three obstructingly stout bodies sat in their way.

1911 N.E.D. at Screen sb.¹ Anything which intervenes obstructingly.