impedimenta
Aug. 17th, 2010 07:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordimpedimenta (im-ped-uh-MEN-tuh) - pl.n., objects, such as baggage or provisions, that impede or encumber.
Especially an army, but more commonly now in general. In comedy routines, the pile of stuff carried by the go-fer. All the electronic devices that you don't quite have enough pockets for. The one too many bags of groceries you bring in. Those parts of a teenager's room that do not have trails. The things that impede -- which is indeed the source: borrowed in the 1590s from the Latin, the plural of impedīmentum, impediment (which comes from that singular form), from impedīre, to entangle, lit. snare the feet (from which impede comes), from im- + ped + verbal ending.
---L.
Especially an army, but more commonly now in general. In comedy routines, the pile of stuff carried by the go-fer. All the electronic devices that you don't quite have enough pockets for. The one too many bags of groceries you bring in. Those parts of a teenager's room that do not have trails. The things that impede -- which is indeed the source: borrowed in the 1590s from the Latin, the plural of impedīmentum, impediment (which comes from that singular form), from impedīre, to entangle, lit. snare the feet (from which impede comes), from im- + ped + verbal ending.
---L.
