From Middle English impediment, borrowed from Latin impedimentum.

• IPA^(key): /ɪmˈpɛdɪmənt/

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impediment (plural impediments)

1. A hindrance; that which impedes or obstructs progress; impedance.
   • 1549 March 7, Thomas Cranmer [et al.], compilers, “Of Matrimonye”, in The Booke of the Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacramentes, […], London: […] Edowardi Whitchurche […], →OCLC:

     I require and charge you (as you will aunswere at the dreadefull daye of iudgemente, when the secretes of all hartes shalbee disclosed) that if either of you doe knowe any impedimente why ye maie not bee lawfully ioyned together in matrimonie, that ye confesse it.

   • c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:

     Thus far into the bowels of the land
     Have we marched on without impediment.

   • 1720 July 31 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Alexander Pope, “To the Same [Letter to the Honourable Robert Digby, from Mr. Pope]”, in Mr Pope’s Literary Correspondence for Thirty Years; from 1704 to 1734. […], volume I, London: […] E[dmund] Curll, […], published 1735, →OCLC, page 129:

     Your kind Deſire to knovv the State of my Health had not been unſatiſfied of ſo long, had not that ill State been the Impediment.

   • 1816 June – 1817 April/May (date written), [Mary Shelley], Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, published 1 January 1818, →OCLC:

     I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined.

   • 1993, Carol Shields, chapter 2, in The Stone Diaries‎^[1], Toronto, Ont.: Random House of Canada, page 64:

     Patterns incised on this mineral form seem to evade the eye; you have to stand at a certain distance, and in a particular light, to make them out. This impediment is part of the charm for him.

   • 2025 January 14, Howard LaFranchi, “In Biden-Trump handoff, a foreign policy shift for a changed world?”, in The Christian Science Monitor‎^[2]:

     In the run-up to his return to the White House next Monday, Mr. Trump has rattled the world, and America’s neighborhood in particular, with a list of objectives – buying Greenland, seizing the Panama Canal, making Canada the 51st state – that treat friendly nations as weak interlocutors and impediments to be subdued.

2. A disability, especially one affecting the hearing or speech.

   Working in a noisy factory left me with a slight hearing impediment.

   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Mark 7:32:

     And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.

   • 1730, Joseph Addison, The Evidences of the Christian Religion, London: J. Tonson, Additional Discourses, Section 10, p. 308,^[3]

     Let us suppose a person blind and deaf from his birth, who being grown to man’s estate, is by the Dead-palsy, or some other cause, deprived of his Feeling, Tasting, and Smelling; and at the same time has the impediment of his Hearing removed, and the film taken from his eyes […]

   • 1858, Thomas Carlyle, chapter VI, in History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, volume II, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, book VI, page 9:

     Better for you not to be tall! In fact it is almost a kindness of Heaven to be gifted with some safe impediment of body, slightly crooked back or the like, if you much dislike the career of honor under Friedrich Wilhelm.

   • 1931, Dashiell Hammett, chapter 3, in The Glass Key‎^[4], New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, published 1972, page 56:

     […] Walter Ivans replied as rapidly as the impediment in his speech permitted.

3. (chiefly in the plural) Baggage, especially that of an army; impedimenta.
   • 1913, Thomas McManus, “The Battle of Irish Bend”, in The Twenty-Fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion‎^[5], Rockville, Conn., page 36:

     We were all on foot, officers and men alike. Our horses, baggage, and impediments had been left at Brashear to follow the column of General Emory.

• hindrance
• obstruction
• obstacle
• See also Thesaurus:hindrance

• impede
• impedimenta

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “impediment”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2025), “impediment”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

Borrowed from Latin impedimentum.

impediment n (plural impedimente)

1. impediment