Friday, July 30, 2010

impedimenta

impedimenta \im-ped-uh-MEN-tuh\, noun:

1. 行军行李,部队辎重

2. 包袱,累赘,阻碍

Baggage or other things that retard one's progress.

With the ladies, therefore, matters soon assumed vivid and definite shape; they became clearly and irrefutably materialized; they stood stripped of all doubt and other impedimenta.
-- Nikolaĭ Gogol, Dead Souls

Amid all the usual impedimenta of a life, he came upon an unexpected treasure."When I was going through my father's chest of drawers, I found a little book that turned out to be a diary of my mother," Rodriguez told The Times.
-- Elizabeth Ogus, "Mi Diario,"The Montclair Times, July 2010.

Impedimenta relates to the Latin impedire, literally "to shackle one's feet."

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