impair

present singular third person impairs · participle present impairing · participle past impaired · past impaired · alternative obsolete rare empair

1. transitiveTo weaken; to affect negatively; to have a diminishing effect on.

   In 2016, it was announced that Jones had been diagnosed with primary progressive aphasia, a form of dementia that impairs the ability to communicate.

   2020 January 22, Stuart Jeffries, “Terry Jones obituary”, in The Guardian

2. archaicintransitiveTo grow worse; to deteriorate.

   Flesh may empaire,[…]but reason can repaire.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

comparative more impair · superlative most impair · alternative obsolete rare empair

1. obsoleteNot fit or appropriate; unsuitable.

   giues he not till iudgement guide his bounty, / Nor dignifies an impaire thought with breath:

   c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene v]

plural impairs · alternative obsolete rare empair

1. obsoleteThe act of impairing or deteriorating.
2. obsoleteThe fact of being impaired or having grown worse.
3. obsoleteAn impairment or deterioration.

   Suppoſe a mans credit ſhould ſuffer an impair with thoſe whoſe cenſure is not to be valued; yet think, which is worſe, ſhame or ſin? Wilt thou ſin againſt God to ſave thy credit?

   1671, Thomas Watson, The Beatitudes, pages 146–147