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Impediment   /ɪmpˈɛdəmənt/   Listen
Impediment

noun
1.
Something immaterial that interferes with or delays action or progress.  Synonyms: balk, baulk, check, deterrent, handicap, hinderance, hindrance.
2.
Any structure that makes progress difficult.  Synonyms: impedimenta, obstructer, obstruction, obstructor.



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"Impediment" Quotes from Famous Books



... philosopher's stones and charms. [2793]"Many doubt," saith Nicholas Taurellus, "whether the devil can cure such diseases he hath not made, and some flatly deny it, howsoever common experience confirms to our astonishment, that magicians can work such feats, and that the devil without impediment can penetrate through all the parts of our bodies, and cure such maladies by means to us unknown." Daneus in his tract de Sortiariis subscribes to this of Taurellus; Erastus de lamiis, maintaineth as much, and so do most ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior

... towards what seemed the hard and knobby places that appeared among the mud. This exercise soon made me conscious of the knapsack, to which I was then not thoroughly accustomed. It was not so much the weight that I felt, but the tightness of the belt across the chest, which caused pain and impediment of breathing. Custom, however, caused the knapsack to become even an aid to me ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie

... Another impediment, not the least vexatious to the commentator, is the exactness with which Shakespeare followed his authors. Instead of dilating his thoughts into generalities, and expressing incidents with poetical latitude, he often combines circumstances unnecessary to his main ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... long pleasant walk of fourteen miles to Engelberg lay before them, to be taken leisurely, with many a rest in the deep cool shades of the woods, or under the shadow of some great rock. The only impediment with which Alice burdened herself was a little green slip of ivy, which Felix had gathered from the walls of her country home, and which she had carried in a little flower-pot filled with English soil, to plant on his father's grave. It had been a sacred, though somewhat ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... applied to Nobunaga. This was exactly the kind of alliance that Nobunaga wanted to justify his schemes of national conquest. With his own candidate in the office of shogun, he could proceed without impediment to reduce all the princes of the empire to his supreme authority. He therefore undertook to see Yoshiaki established as shogun, and for this purpose marched a large army into Kyoto. Yoshiaki was installed as shogun in A.D. 1568, and at his suggestion ...
— Japan • David Murray

... permafrost over much of Siberia is a major impediment to development; volcanic activity in the Kuril Islands; volcanoes and earthquakes on the Kamchatka Peninsula; spring floods and summer/autumn forest fires throughout Siberia ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... with times, and of sparing persons, is the great impediment of biography. History may be formed from permanent monuments and records: but lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost for ever. What is known can seldom be immediately told; and when it might be told, it is no longer ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... In one of the largest laboratories of America, and within ten years, an experiment equally cruel, equally useless, has been performed. The modern defender of unrestricted vivisection distinctly insists that no legal impediment should hinder the performance of any investigation desired by any experimenter. It was the editor of the British Medical Journal who once declared that "whoever has not seen an animal under experiment CANNOT FORM AN IDEA OF THE HABITUAL ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell

... fear of the enactment of the Bland bill, and the limitation of the amount of silver dollars to be coined, removed the great impediment to the sale of four per cent. bonds, for refunding purposes, and the progress toward ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... green, any loose impediment (not being in or touching a hazard) which is within a club length of the ball may be removed. If the player's ball move after any such loose impediment has been touched by the player, his partner, or either of their caddies, the penalty shall ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon

... produced by the capitalist system to the injury of the workingman and of society, will, at a higher grade of civilization, prove itself a benefit. Moreover, a population as large as possible is, even to-day, not an impediment to but a promoter of progress—on the same principle that the existing over-production of goods and food, the destruction of the family by the enlisting of women and children in the factories, and the expropriation of ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... belly on hers. "Oh! you are heavy, you smother me," said she rousing herself, "you're going to hurt me,—don't sir, it hurts," all in a groggy tone and in one breath. I inserted a finger between the lips of her quim, and tried gently to put it up, but felt an impediment. She had never been opened by man. I then put my prick carefully in the nick, and gave the gentlest possible movement (as far as I can recollect) ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... one's mind often amuse me. We used, as good Episcopalians, to go every Sunday to the little English Church on the rue des Palmiers. Alas, I can remember only one thing about those services. The clergyman had a peculiar impediment in his speech which made him say his h's and s's, both as sh. Thus he always said shuman for human, and invariably prayed that God might be pleased to "shave the Queen." He nearly got me into trouble once or twice ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... That impediment, however, which had hitherto retarded his departure being removed, he now set out for Eton, under the conduct of the abovementioned kinsman, who placed him in a boarding-house very near the school, and took his leave, after having given him such admonitions as he thought ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... should have been left to grow in front a la Plutus, or have been long at the sides a la Nazarene, which is the mode most of our Sicilian gentlemen prefer." We were about to rise, wash, and depart, but an impediment is offered by the artist. "Non l'ho raffinato ancora, Signor, bisogna raffinarlo un poco!" and before we could arrive at the occult meaning of raffinare, his fingers were exploring very technically ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... away, and centered itself upon another. Charlie Hudson had sought her for his wife, and while confessing her love for him she insisted that she could not be his, because she was bound to me. This, however, did not prevent his seeking an interview with her father, who told him frankly the terrible impediment to Nina's marriage with any one. It was a crushing blow to young Hudson, but he still clung to her with all a brother's devotion, soothing her grief upon the sea, and caring for her tenderly until Boston was reached, and he placed her in my hands, together with a ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... of gigantic fern-leaves, sprang out horizontally from the trunk, projecting right over the house and flower-garden, to both of which they furnished a grateful proportion of shade, without — being so high up — offering any impediment to the passage ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... project visibly from his face. And this is now the third year since it has been slowly but steadily coming out. It is to be expected, therefore, that the whole barb will eventually come out, though not for a long time. But it has not been an impediment to the man in any way. So ...
— Procopius - History of the Wars, Books V. and VI. • Procopius

... extending from the island of Manaar, near the N.W. coast of Ceylon to the island of Rameswaram, off the Indian coast, and lying between the Gulf of Manaar on the S.W. and Palk Strait on the N.E. It is more than 30 m. long and offers a serious impediment to navigation. Some of the sandbanks are dry; and no part of the shoal has a greater depth than 3 or 4 ft. at high water, except three tortuous and intricate channels which have recently been dredged to a sufficient depth to admit the passage of vessels, so as to obviate the long journey round ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... is like he may, in case this linsey-wolsey fellow of a mercer's visit to his premises has disquieted him. But, no," he added, pushing the huge gate, which gave way, "the door stands invitingly open; and here we are within the forbidden ground, without other impediment than the passive resistance of a heavy oak ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... expectations are well grounded; and therefore detect the deceits which they are apt to occasion. But timidity is a disease of the mind more obstinate and fatal; for a man once persuaded, that any impediment is insuperable, has given it, with respect to himself, that strength and weight which it had ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... the pounde. At the reading of this the Assembly thought good to send for Mr. Abraham Persey, the Cape marchant, to publishe this instruction to him, and to demaunde[124] of him if he knewe of any impediment why it might not be admitted of? His answere[125] was that he had not as yet received any suche order from the Adventurers of the[126] —— in England. And notw^{th}standing he sawe the authority was good, yet was he unwilling to yield, ...
— Colonial Records of Virginia • Various

... the opinion of the Inspector himself, as he remarked the extreme excitement under which the Englishman was laboring. Absorbed in thoughts of his own, he was pacing the room with long strides, turning mechanically as he met some impediment, but otherwise oblivious to his surroundings, even to the point of not noting the presence of Sweetwater, who stood quietly watching him from ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... a society which is divided into classes with diametrically opposing interests. The last remnant of its revolutionary character is thus taken from his philosophy, and there remains the old cant—"love one another"—fall into each other's arms without regard to any impediment of sex or ...
— Feuerbach: The roots of the socialist philosophy • Frederick Engels

... at the bottom to empty it. But we must not thus accuse him of lack of judgment. The interior of the tube is just large enough for the passage of an acorn; but at certain points the sap is not entirely absorbed, and there might easily be an impediment which would leave a large part of the cavity empty. Hence the necessity for a number of openings. When the sun has scorched up plants, and provisions are rare, he turns to his barns of abundance. Now and every time that he has need he ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... many Bookes together: hee is furnished with my opinion, which bettred with his owne learning, the greatnesse whereof I cannot enough commend, comes with him at my importunity, to fill vp your Graces request in my sted. I beseech you, let his lacke of years be no impediment to let him lacke a reuerend estimation: for I neuer knewe so yong a body, with so old a head. I leaue him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... the shark, as they supposed, which had but recently devoured the dead body of the sailor. Trusting to this conjecture, they plied the oars with all the little strength left in their arms. Still, notwithstanding their feeble efforts, and the impediment of pulling against the wind, they were nearing the unfortunate man, surely, ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid

... Croisset had taken up the trail of the man who had shot at him soon after they had separated at the gravesides. He was equally certain that the chase would be short. Jean was quick. Dogs and sledge would be an impediment for the other in the darkness of the night. Before this, hours ago, they must have met. If Jean had come out of that meeting unharmed, it was time for him to be showing up at Adare House. Still greater perturbation filled Philip's mind when he recalled the unpleasant ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood

... The chief impediment to the progress of the work, however, was Short, the compositor. On close acquaintance with this creature, I found that he did not belie my first impression of him as the laziest and most slovenly of men; and I soon realised the two dominant characteristics which had made of him a Socialist—envy ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith

... day, and when it came to saying good-bye into the bargain? Nonsense! She'd break down and howl, and he would comfort her, and take off his coat. Look here, Mollie—go to bed! I've waited all the evening to have a talk with mother, and you are the only impediment left. Take your book with you ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... having left his eyes, and the blood (the extreme loss of which, from his great agitation, had alone caused him to swoon), being stopped by an embalmed bandage, he seemed to feel no impediment from his wound; and rising, hastened to the side of Helen. Lord Mar softly whispered his daughter-"Sir William Wallace is at your feet, my dearest child; look on him, and ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... forced to depend upon the resources of his own intellect, and determined to devote his life to oratory. He chose Isaeus for his master, and though having a weakly constitution, and an impediment in his speech, yet by steady, persevering effort, and daily practice, he brought himself to address without embarrassment, and with complete success, the assembled multitudes of the Athenian people. ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... must do something," cried Glyn, who couldn't sit still for laughing. "Can't you turn his head? We are mowing and harrowing all these flower-beds with this wood-stack he's dragging at his heels. Ah, that's better!" continued Glyn, as, finding the impediment rather unpleasant, the animal turned off at right angles and reached out with its trunk to remove the obstacles attached ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... impediment still remains. It is the predominance of a popular philosophy, at once the counterfeit and the mortal enemy of all true and manly metaphysical research. It is that corruption, introduced by certain immethodical ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... answered Mrs. Huzzard, and turned around to face the speaker, who was an apologetic-looking stranger with drab-colored chin whiskers, and a checkered shirt, and a slight impediment ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... an advantage, in that their engines for sieges cooperated with them in throwing darts and stones as far as the Jews, when they were coming out of the city; whereby the man that fell became an impediment to him that was next to him, as did the danger of going farther make them less zealous in their attempts; and for those that had run under the darts some of them were terrified by the good order and closeness of the enemies' ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... greatly to Nep's delight, he began to run as fast as he could, leaping over the fallen trees, allowing no impediment to stop him. He stopped for a moment to pick some juicy fruit resembling limes, which grew on a tree in his path, on which Nep came back and gave another pull at his trousers, as if fearing that he ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... transient revolt here" he seemingly insinuates, that but for this transient revolt he would perhaps try his hand at the European game. It would look so grand to be in company with the Decembriseur. Then the only impediment would be the people's will different from yours, oh, Seward! The refusal in the dispatch re-echoes the convictions of the American people; its shilly-shally conditionality is exclusively Sewardism and only fit to catch a ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski

... the hotel of the equestrians, I found that our Vermont acquaintance was one of the quaintest specimens of the Yankee race I had ever seen, and not a few examples had I met previous to my encounter with him. He had a droll impediment in his speech which gave to his actions and gestures a turn irresistibly comic, and then he told an excellent story, played the trombone, triangle, and bass viol, spoke Spanish well, drove one of the circus wagons, translated the bills, turned an occasional somerset in the ring, cracked jokes in ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various

... Basin; hurricanes along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts; tornadoes in the midwest and southeast; mud slides in California; forest fires in the west; flooding; permafrost in northern Alaska, a major impediment to development ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... spirit of liberality. No stinting was permitted on this day, at least; the rule for each child's allowance being that it was to have about twice as much as it could possibly eat, thus leaving a reserve to be carried home for such as age, sickness, or other impediment prevented from coming to the feast. Buns and beer circulated, meantime, amongst the musicians and church-singers; afterwards the benches were removed, and they were left to unbend their ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... the world, had from afar grown attached to the man who wrote to him with such glowing love of country and freedom. He had eventually informed him of his journey, and promised to call upon him. But the hospitality which he had accepted at the Boccanera mansion now seemed to him somewhat of an impediment; for after Benedetta's kindly, almost affectionate, greeting, he felt that he could not, on the very first day and with out warning her, sally forth to visit the father of the man from whom she had fled and from whom she now asked the Church ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... Oh yes, you will. You have said too much or too little, now. I must hear 'all,' then I shall judge for myself. I may be in love—still I am amenable to reason. If you can show me any just cause or impediment to my marriage—if you can convince me it will be wrong in the sight of Heaven or man, then, dearly as I love her, I will give her up. But your ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... creative wisdom, as the master-work of God; and also in extolling the first race of men as pure and upright, innocent and happy. The beings who were thus created by Brahma are all said to have been endowed with righteousness and perfect faith; they abode wherever they pleased, unchecked by any impediment; their hearts were free from guile; they were pure, made free from toil by observance of sacred institutes. In their sanctified minds Hari dwelt; and they were filled with perfect wisdom by which they ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... studying these illustrations it can be readily seen how an over-distended rectum may produce such an impediment to the circulation that there will be congestion of all the neighboring parts. Or, the intestines themselves may become over-distended with faecal matter, or gas, from dyspepsia, and the pressure induced thereby may be sufficient to interfere with the free circulation of these parts, ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... not mislead us into supposing that Maori women were free, as a rule, to marry the husbands of their choice. As Tregear's own remarks indicate, the advances were either of an improper character, or the girl had made sure beforehand that there was no impediment in the way of her proposal. The Maori proverb that as the fastidious Kahawai fish selects the hook which pleases it best, so a woman chooses a man out of many (on the strength of which alone Westermarck, 217, claims liberty of choice for Maori women) must also ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... persecuted him. He ordered some sail to be spread, turned the prow to the sea and the poop to the wind, and himself taking the helm, let the vessel run over the wide sea, secure of not being crossed in his way by any impediment. The oars were all placed in their regular positions, the whole crew was seated on the benches, and no one else was seen on foot in the whole galley but the boatswain, who had lashed himself strongly amidship ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... the whole of the day, without one single impediment excepting the heat, which was intolerable; the thermometer which hung by the clock and was exposed to the sun, as we were, was one time as high as ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson

... him or them erected; and exercise music, musical presentments, scenes, dancing, or other the like, at the same, or other, hours, or times, or after plays are ended,[715] peaceably and quietly, without the impeachment or impediment of any person or persons whatsoever, for the honest recreation of such as shall desire to see the same. And that it shall and may be lawful to and for the said William Davenant, his heirs, executors, administrators, and assigns, to take and receive of such ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams

... Hundreds of brawny arms, each one of which grasped a stone, were raised into the air: while as many stooping forms were seen, crouching close to the ground, that they might leave room for the slingers to hurl their missiles without impediment. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... observed and regarded the said grant of the said arms which I thus bestow upon the said city of Manila in the Filipinas Islands, so that they be allowed to place and possess them in the said city. And I order that no obstruction or impediment be offered to this concession or to any part of it, and that no one shall consent to place any obstruction whatever thereto, under penalty of my displeasure, and of a fine of ten thousand maravedis, to be paid to my exchequer, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair

... whole world his splendour, not only from the temporal firmament, but from the height of heaven, which surpasses every thing temporal, at the latter part, as we know, of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, by whom his religion was propagated without impediment, and death threatened to those who interfered ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas

... often used as including the parapet. Bulwark is a general word for any defensive wall or rampart; its only technical use at present is in nautical language, where it signifies the raised side of a ship above the upper deck, topped by the rail. Compare BOUNDARY; IMPEDIMENT. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... for him to rise. He dressed, made his breakfast on cold food that had been laid for him the night before; and went down to the room of his idol for the box. The door was open; a strange disorder reigned within; the furniture all pushed aside, and the centre of the room left bare of impediment, as though for the pacing of a creature with a tortured mind. There lay the box, however, and upon the lid a paper with these words: 'Harry, I hope to be back before you ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... on the other side of the screen. A bullet-headed youth, in a red coat with gold letters on the shoulder, fingering a forage-cap, slunk out round the end of this impediment, passing the two men beside the door, and a light, clear voice ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... but the remembrance of that last thing that the shepherds had showed them made their hands shake, by means of which impediment they could not look steadily through the glass: yet they thought they saw something like the gate, and also some of the glory ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... heirs, the tutor, male or female, of his minor heir, and which, if he derogated from immemorial usage, annulled his will like that of a private individual, his quality of suzerain and that of Most Christian, were for him a double impediment. As hereditary general of the feudal army he was bound to consider and respect the hereditary officers of the same army, his old peers and companions in arms—that is to say, the nobles. As outside bishop, he owed to the Church not alone his spiritual orthodoxy, but, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... such as doing what is not beneficial, and the like, do not attach to that Brahman; for as eternal freedom is its characteristic nature, there is nothing either beneficial to be done by it or non-beneficial to be avoided by it. Nor is there any impediment to its knowledge and power; for it is omniscient and omnipotent. The embodied Self, on the other hand, is of a different nature, and to it the mentioned faults adhere. But then we do not declare it to be the creator of the ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... bar and royal interview, Your mightiness on both parts best can witness. Since then my office hath so far prevail'd That, face to face and royal eye to eye, You have congreeted, let it not disgrace me If I demand, before this royal view, What rub or what impediment there is, Why that the naked, poor, and mangled Peace, Dear nurse of arts, plenties, and joyful births, Should not in this best garden of the world, Our fertile France, put up her lovely visage? Alas, she hath from France too long been ...
— The Life of King Henry V • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]

... he said, pointing to the hole. "Creep along that narrow passage, and it will bring you to a small loophole in the wall, not many feet from the ground. The loophole is guarded by a bar of iron, but it is moved by a spring in the upper part of the stone in which it appears to be mortised. This impediment removed, you will easily force your way through the loophole. Drop cautiously, for fear of the sentinels on the walls; then make your way to the forest, and if you 'scape the arquebusiers who are scouring it, conceal yourself in the sandstone ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth

... such that he is a typical figure. Indeed, he is all type; which is the same as saying that there is nobody like him. And, mentally, he produces the impression of being all force; in his writings, his mind seems to have acted immediately, without natural impediment or friction; as if a machine should be run that was not hindered by the contact of its parts. As he was physically lean and narrow of figure, and his face nothing but so many features welded together, so there was no ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... did have an impediment in his speech there was certainly nothing of that kind connected with his movements. He was known to be one of the smartest players on the high school nine; though tongue-tied, he could equal the swiftest player on the football ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie

... a good commodity for commerce; and the culture of it is attended with no difficulty. The only impediment to the culture of it in a greater quantity, is the difficulty of separating it from the seed. However, if they had mills, which would do this work with greater dispatch, the profit ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz

... ultra-personal points of view may have their natural sweetness and value. In this way, Saint Augustine was ultimately brought to appreciate the catholicity and scope of those Greek sages who had taught that all being was to itself good, that evil was but the impediment of natural function, and that therefore the conception of anything totally or essentially evil was only a petulance or exaggeration in moral judgment that took, as it were, the bit in its teeth, and turned an incidental conflict of interests ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... course, a terrible clatter; on another, twelve guests, who all had the misfortune to squint, amused their host with their ludicrous cross lights; and on a third, the same number of stutterers entertained him still more, not only by their uncouth impediment, but by the anger with which they began to sputter at one another, on the supposition that each was mocking his neighbor. A short-hand writer, behind the scenes, was employed to take down the conversation, which, says the witty essayist, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers

... the chain should be weighted with a pole or small log, of a size proportionate to the dimensions of the game, its weight being merely sufficient to offer a serious incumbrance to the animal, without positively checking its movements. This impediment is called the "clog," and is usually attached to the ring of the trap chain by its larger end, the ring being slipped over the latter, and secured in place by a wedge. A look at our frontispiece will give a clear idea ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... sickness, by neglecting to shift their wet clothes in hot countries. their ignorance and obstinacy, a great impediment ...
— A Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier

... what Spurgeon has not, an almighty, irresistible impetus in his movements,—movements which, though centripetal, forever seeking the earth, and forever trailing their mountain-weight of glory along the line of and through the midst of flesh-and-blood realities, yet never found any impediment in all their course, but swept the ground like a whirlwind. This distinction between Spurgeon and Luther in the matter of strength is an important one; and it is, moreover, a distinction which may easily be derived—even if no other source lay open to us—from a palpable difference between ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... (particularly mine, from carrying the compass with which we steered) were not so numerous as might have been wished. But, certainly, if the qualities of it be such as to deserve future cultivation, no impediment of surface but that of cutting down and burning the trees exists to ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... cause the sides almost to meet at the top. The degree of forethought that these self-taught architects possess is strikingly exemplified in the fact that, whilst building the walls, any forks or inequalities are turned 'outwards', so as to offer no impediment to their free passage when skylarking (if it is not an Irishism, using such an expression with regard to a starling) and chasing each other through and through the bower, to which innocent recreations, according to the testimony of Messrs. ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... at once get a fleet together. Louis, who has privately brought about this meeting, will of course throw no impediment in his way; but, on the other hand, the Duke of Burgundy will do all in his power to thwart the enterprise, and will, as soon as he learns of it, warn Edward. I feel new life in me, Eleanor. After fretting ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... Turmoil within the region adjacent to the Persian Gulf poses risks for the security and prosperity of every oil importing nation and thus for the entire global economy. The continuing holding of American hostages in Iran is both an affront to civilized people everywhere, and a serious impediment to meeting the self-evident threat to widely-shared common ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... seen Palmyre and loved her. Honore would gladly have solved one or two riddles by effecting their honorable union in marriage. The previous ceremony on the Grandissime back piazza need be no impediment; all slave-owners understood those things. Following Honore's advice, the f.m.c., who had come into possession of his paternal portion, sent to Cannes Brulees a written offer, to buy Palmyre at any price that her master might name, stating his intention to free her and make her his wife. Colonel ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... put in its way." The little bundle, which, to the zealot Jewish elders of that community, seemed sufficient indication that Maimon was tainted with heresy, and that his intentions were to devote himself to the study of science and philosophy, proved a great impediment to entering Berlin; and when, after a long, incredible struggle, he was finally admitted, he found himself incapable of earning a livelihood. In his childlike naivete he was betrayed by the very persons upon whom he relied most. All this could ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... S. C.,—Take it not amiss if this is a wretched letter. I am eaten up with business. Every day this week I have had some business impediment—I am even now waiting a deputation of chiefs about the road—and my precious morning was shattered by a polite old scourge of a faipule—parliament man—come begging. All the time David Balfour is skelping along. I began it the 13th of last month; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... come to Virginia. "If those of Newe England shall dislike the coldnes of there clymate or the barrenness of the soyle," wrote Harvey, "you may propose unto them the plantinge of Delaware bay, where they shall have what furtherance wee cann afford them, and noe impediment objected against ...
— Virginia Under Charles I And Cromwell, 1625-1660 • Wilcomb E. Washburn

... ahead of his ability to manufacture. He makes his own price, and chooses his customer. This operates not unkindly on the jobbers who are wealthy and independent; but for those who have but lately begun to mount the hill of difficulty, it offers one more impediment. For, to men who have a great many goods to sell, it is a matter of moment to secure the customers who can buy in large quantities, and whose notes will bring the money of banks or private capitalists as soon as offered. Against such buyers, men ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... Gates on the Last Day when the quick and the dead, called up for judgment, were streaming in through the portals—still would they behave thus. Where they met would be where they stopped to talk, regardless of the consequences to themselves, regardless of impediment to the movements of their ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... instant a second despatch announced, that General Grouchy refused to sign the treaty, unless he had the consent of the Emperor, and the Duke of Angouleme was deemed a prisoner. Upon this the Duke of Bassano hastened to transmit the first orders of Napoleon, and delayed informing him of the impediment to the ratification, till night rendered any new orders by telegraph impracticable. Being made acquainted with this noble daring of his minister, instead of reprimanding him, the Emperor dictated to ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... waters, that carried away the lighter portions of the soil. The southern shore, seen from the lake, seems to lie in regular ridges running from south to north; some few are parallel with the lake-shore, possibly where some surmountable impediment turned the current the subsiding waters; but they all find an outlet through their connexion with ravines ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill

... choose them. When this is the case the first consideration is not the things themselves, but the best mode of presenting them so as to recommend them to the senses. The logical sequence of conceptions of which only the strictness should have been hidden from us is rejected as a disagreeable impediment. Perfection is sacrificed to ornament, the truth of the parts to the beauty of the whole, the inmost nature of things to the exterior impression. Now, directly the substance is subordinated to form, properly speaking it ceases to exist; the ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... first appearance in the part of Young Norval, in the tragedy of "Douglas." He writes: "I had provided for the purpose, before I left Edinburgh, a Highland dress, accoutred cap-a-pie with a broadsword, shield, and dirk, found upon the field of Culloden. But here, as usual, fresh impediment arose Lord Bute's administration, from causes unnecessary here to enter upon, was become so unpleasing to the multitude, that anything confessedly Scotch awakened the embers of discussion, and fed the ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook

... believe that I am entrusted with secrets by the English Cabinet about the Behring Straits and other vexed questions, and I openly tell him what I believe to be the dark designs of England upon a free country; in fact, I don't know what I don't tell him, and now that he is no more I see no just cause or impediment why I should not now make public his reply. It is all on ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... as good, and that might be much more naturally introduced." An anecdote or a remark will keep. We are not under the necessity of begrudging every moment that shortens our own innings; of interrupting our companion by our looks and voting him an impediment to our own ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin

... served, though unintentionally, by Madame Bonaventure, who succeeded in drawing back the rusty bolt at the very moment he came up; and no impediment now existing, the knight thrust her rudely aside, and sprang through the doorway just as Jocelyn leaped from ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... without warrand of authority, either civill or ecclesiasticall: and that it establisheth offices in Gods house, which are not warranded by the word of God, and are repugnant to the Discipline, and constitutions of our Kirk, that it is an impediment to the entrie of fit and worthie men to the ministery, and to the discharge of their dutie after their entrie, conforme to the discipline of our Kirk. Therefore the Assembly all in one voice hath rejected and condemned, and by these presents doe reject and ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland

... one was short, and heavily built, while the other, a much taller, and seemingly more nervous man, was wrapped in a long cavalry cape. It was his voice speaking, a rather peculiar voice, as though he possessed some slight impediment of speech. ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish

... a new channel can be discovered, or the original Nile be reopened, the centre of Africa will be entirely shut out from communication, and all my projects for the improvement of the country will be ruined by this extraordinary impediment. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker

... in principle the same as the arc, produced by the same means and based upon the same principle of impediment to the free passage of the current. It was first produced by heating with the current to incandescence a fine platinum wire. As stated above, electricity that quietly traverses a large wire will suddenly develop great heat upon reaching ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele

... into its seaward hollows. How I girded at the vapor that almost continually shrouded it. But I am now inclined to believe that the glamour which made the prospect seen from the cliff-edge so rich, was largely due to the diaphanous impediment to complete vision. This, by hiding or allowing only a bare hint of the details, gave full ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully

... upon the prongs Of a bad pen, whose disobedient sputter, With less of ink than incoherence fraught Befits the folly that it tries to utter. Brains, I observe, as well as tongues, can stutter: You suffer from impediment of thought. ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce

... kind offices! There he goes! Look at him! What a slashing pace for a heavy fellow!" This observation was made with reference to a well-known officer on the commander-in-chief's staff, whose weight—some two and twenty stone—never was any impediment to his ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... accomplishment a closer uniformity of thought and feeling than was either possible or desirable among Churches whose greatest conquest had been a liberty of thinking. As between England and Germany, one great impediment to a cordial understanding arose out of the differences between Lutheran and Reformed. So long as the English Church was under the guidance of Cranmer and Ridley, it was not clear to which of these two parties it most nearly approximated. ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton

... and send down those sounds which would otherwise glance off the glossy fur and never find entrance to the tiny orifice at all. If it were any larger than is absolutely necessary it would be a serious impediment to a professional diver and swimmer like the sea-lion. This is the reason why otters have very small ears, and why whales and porpoises have none ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... glory and power of the king, and will both myself adopt your customs, since the god that has exalted the Persians will have it so, and will also increase the number of those who prostrate themselves before the king. So let this be no impediment to the interview with him which I desire." "Whom of the Greeks," asked Artabanus, "are we to tell him is come? for you do not seem to have the manners of a man of humble station." "No one," answered Themistokles, "must ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... the same; for no one questions the vocation of a person who is determined, who sincerely wishes, to become a religious, if there is no impediment. ...
— Vocations Explained - Matrimony, Virginity, The Religious State and The Priesthood • Anonymous

... the army," continued the old man; "and if you'll take my advice, you'll do so without the impediment of a wife." ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope

... is she deaf? a great impediment. Yet remedies there are for such defects. Sweet Em, it is no little grief to me, To see, where nature in her pride of art Hath wrought perfections rich ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... scarcely extricated himself from this impediment, and again commenced his researches after the clergyman, when his course was once more interrupted by a sort of pressgang, headed by Sir Bingo Binks, who, in order to play his character of a drunken boatswain ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... until last July. I asked by what means he had been able to accomplish so much? He answered, "By industry, and by hiring all the convicts I could get to work in their leisure hours, besides some little assistance which the governor has occasionally thrown in." His greatest impediment is want of water, being obliged to fetch all he uses more than half a mile. He sunk a well, and found water, but it was brackish and not fit to drink. If this man shall continue in habits of industry and sobriety, I think him sure ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... British lines at once by a charge of the mounted infantry; the measure was not sanctioned by any thing I had seen or heard of, but I was fully convinced that it would succeed. The American backwoodsmen ride better in the woods than any other people. A musket or rifle is no impediment to them, being accustomed to carry them on horseback from their earliest youth. I was persuaded, too, that the enemy would be quite unprepared for the shock, and that they could not resist it. Conformably ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... one moment with his eyes fixed upon the ground—then he turned, sprang through the doorway, vaulted on his horse, and went off from her cottage door as an arrow leaps from a bow. The fences and ditches that lay in his way were no impediment. His powerful steed carried him over all and into the forest beyond, where he was quickly lost to view. Mary tried to resume her household occupations with a sigh. She did not believe he was ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... by four horses, and, at one time, the snow accumulated around the foot of one of the leaders until it formed a huge ball, and with this impediment he was partially precipitated over the edge of a precipice. This noble animal exhibited more presence of mind than would have characterized many human beings under similar circumstances, and, with great judgment, gradually extricated the foot from its snowy burden, ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... is unseasonable and pestilent. [Greek] (to play, that we may be seriously busy), is the good rule (of Anacharsis), implying the subordination of sport to business, as a condiment and furtherance, not an impediment or clog thereto. He that for his sport neglects his business, deserves indeed to be reckoned among children; and children's fortune will attend him, to be pleased with toys, and to ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow

... signor, she would have imparted the discovery to me, such is the confidence and so great is the love that exists between us. For habit has rendered us so skillful and quick in conversing with the language of the deaf and dumb, that no impediment ever exists to the ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds

... was a great mistake in itself, a great calamity to America as well as to England, a great injustice to many thousands on both sides of the Atlantic, a great loss of human life, a great blow to the real liberties of mankind, and a great impediment to the highest Christian and Anglo-Saxon civilization among the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson

... imagination may be well illustrated from the play of "Macbeth." The imagination of the hero (in him a powerful faculty), representing how the deed would appear to others, and so representing its true nature to himself, was his great impediment on the path to crime. Nor would he have succeeded in reaching it, had he not gone to his wife for help—sought refuge from his troublesome imagination with her. She, possessing far less of the faculty, and having dealt more destructively with what ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... becomes his father, a change suggested, probably, by the tradition related in Saxo's second book that Frothi was Halfdan's father, and facilitated by the fact that, in the Hrlfssaga, the father of Halfdan and Frothi is not mentioned, and, as a result, presents no impediment to the change. But to explain how Halfdan has become Frothi's son, a new relationship has to be invented, so Frothi is said to have the son Halfdan by the daughter of Jorund. According to the Hrlfssaga, Halfdan is slain by his brother. This idea, in the abstract, is retained. But, according ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson

... more powerfully and bind them more closely in obedience to this apostolic chair and to us, than to see how much their pastors cherish the rights and duties of Catholic unity, than to behold them journeying from the farthest lands, notwithstanding every inconvenience and impediment, in order to visit Rome and the apostolic chair, as well as to revere in our humble person the successor of Peter and the Vicar of Christ? We have been always convinced, from the moment we beheld you approaching Peter in the person of his successor, ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell

... neither money nor any other kind of goods, vnder paine and peril of loosing of their liues and goods: and as you make account of the fauour of the Grand Signor our lord Sultan Murates Hottoman, so see you let him passe on his way without any maner of impediment. Dated at Alger in our kingly palace, signed with our princely Signet, and sealed with our great seale, and writen by our Secretarie of estate, the 23. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt

... complimentary language, the profound bowing and hand-kissing of the period, combined to mystify strangers as to its real significance. Sometimes, when there was really a lover in the question, the cavalier servente must have been a serious impediment; he was always La plante ... a contrecarrer un pauvre tiers, in the words of the witty President de Brosses, who, though he did not wholly credit the assurances he received as to the invariable innocence of the institution, was yet far from passing on it the sweeping judgment ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... the box, desiring that the presence of himself and his companions might be no impediment to General Toussaint's ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... not think of that," he answered, "leave me here. The people seem so friendly, that I am sure they will take care of me; and though I wish very much indeed to go with you, I am sure I should only be an impediment ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... barrier, impediment, obstacle, barricade, hindrance; shoal, sandbar, bank; ingot; lever, pole, rod; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... Forest, "as I am satisfied that Fort Frontenac was not abandoned, as you wrote to me that it had been." [Footnote:Lettre du Roy a la Barre, Versailles, 10 Avril, 1684, MS.] Four days later, he wrote to the Intendant of Canada, De Meules, to the effect that the bearer, La Forest, is to suffer no impediment, and that La Barre is to surrender to him, without reserve, all that belongs to La Salle. [Footnote:Lettre du Roy a De Mettles, Versailles, 14 Avril, 1684. Selgnelay wrote to De Meules to the same effect.] Armed ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... not fail to prove ruinous to him. Of what service could the Elbe be to him, when Bohemia, the key to that river, was in the hands of his opponents? These had it in their power to turn his flank as far as the Saale, without hazard or any great impediment, as the event actually proved. Napoleon was cooped up in a narrow space, where in time, even without being defeated, he would have been in danger of starving with his army. Dresden was to him, in some respects, what Wilna had been in 1812. Leipzig, ...
— Frederic Shoberl Narrative of the Most Remarkable Events Which Occurred In and Near Leipzig • Frederic Shoberl (1775-1853)

... The next experiment was sending him as a species of private envoy to the Irish Roman Catholics; but there his failure was even more conspicuous, though perhaps it was equally inevitable. Burke's imagination was at once his unrivaled gift and his perpetual impediment. Like a lover, his eye was no sooner caught, than he invested its charmer with all conceivable attractions. This susceptibility made him irresistible in a cause worthy of his powers, but plunged him into difficulties where the object was inferior to his capacity, and unworthy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various

... in the wheel of the waggon employed in the removal of the Manchester College to London, one trustee opposed a decided "impediment to the movement" of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 206, October 8, 1853 • Various

... Article XII., of the Constitution, which at least confused the lawyers employed by the railroads to prevent the passage of the Stetson bill, was repealed entirely. The adoption of the amendment, would, had it been approved by the people at the general election of 1910, have removed every impediment which railroad attorneys claim to be in the way of an effective railroad regulation ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn

... Mr. Applegate's party, in the loss of one of their boats, which had been carried under water in the midst of the Dalles, and two of Mr. Applegate's children and one man drowned. This misfortune was attributed only to want of skill in the steersman, as at this season there was no impediment to navigation; although the place is entirely impassable at high water, when boats pass safely over the great falls above, in the submerged state in ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont



Words linked to "Impediment" :   hitch, blockage, encumbrance, drag, structure, closure, interference, barrier, preventative, preventive, stoppage, occlusion, deterrent, blockade, incumbrance, stop, bind, impede, difficulty, block, albatross, millstone, straitjacket, obstacle, bar, hindrance, construction, tumbler, baulk



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