Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

impede

UK/ɪmˈpiːd/US/ɪmˈpiːd/
verbC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,530 of 15,258leans writtenformal · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: impeded, impeding, impedes

To impede something is to slow it down by getting in its way. Not stopping it — making it harder.

The word is formal and it belongs to reports and regulations: impede the investigation, impede access, impede the flow of traffic. That partial quality is what distinguishes it from prevent, since something impeded still happens, only slowly. The noun is impediment, which means an obstacle and also, in the older phrase a speech impediment, a difficulty in speaking. The marriage service still asks whether anybody knows of any just impediment.

Definitions of impede

  1. 1verbimpedeTo slow or obstruct something's progress.C1

    “Fallen branches impeded the rescue.”

Also accepted in games: hinder, obstruct

Where it comes from

To impede is to shackle the feet. Latin impediō is built straight on pēs, a foot, so an impediment is something wrapped round your ankles.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *ped-

  2. Latin

    impediō — to shackle

  3. English, today

    impede

Built from

  • pēs · Latin — foot

Borrowed from Latin impediō (“to shackle”), from pēs (“foot”) (compare pedestrian). First attested use as a verb was in William Shakespeare's Macbeth, see quotations.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sharper Verbs, A Man Called Ove

First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

impede in the wild

  • Several reservoirs, including Rylstone Reservoir and Lake Windamere, impede the natural flow of the Cudgegong River past the towns of Mudgee, and near Gulgong.

    Cudgegong River

  • A pulmonary agent, or choking agent, is a chemical weapon agent designed to impede a victim's ability to breathe.

    Pulmonary agent

  • The principal restoration tactic has been to remove snags and other obstacles from the river that serve to impede fish migrations.

    Mattapoisett River

  • Buoy is a British type of anti-tank obstacle used to block roads intended to impede enemy movement.

    Buoy anti-tank obstacle

  • The combined lip flange and gasket do not impede the flow of fluids through the piping.

    ISO 2852

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.