Meanings
- Equipment intended for an activity that serves as more of a hindrance than a help, especially military baggage.
On the plains they will have horses dragging travoises, dogs with travoises, women and children loaded with impedimenta.
1892, Julian Ralph, On Canada's Frontier3 more examples
Dashing back to my compartment, I grabbed my impedimenta - what my companion thought of the maniac who alighted at a station only half-way to the first booked stop I don't know ! - got out, hurried under the subway, and was into my 10.45 comfortably before its departure.
1939 June, “Pertinent Paragraphs: A Surprise at Didcot”, in Railway Magazine, page 452Games impedimenta — hockey-sticks, boxing-gloves, a burst football, a pair of sweaty shorts turned inside out — lay all over the floor, and on the table there was a litter of dirty dishes and dog-eared exercise-books.
1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, page 20There was no sign of piano, organ, hymn-books, church programs—the familiar ecclesiastical impedimenta we saw every Sunday.
1960 July 11, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa.; New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC - pluralplural of impedimentum
Synonyms & antonyms
nounany structure that makes progress difficult
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
- Latinimpedimenta
- Englishimpedimenta
Learned borrowing from Latin impedimenta, circa 1600. Compare impediment.
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
impedimenta. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/impedimenta
“impedimenta.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/impedimenta. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “impedimenta,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/impedimenta.
Source: impedimenta on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.