impedimenta
noun/ɪmˌpɛdɪˈmɛntə/
Etymology Learned borrowing from Latin impedimenta, circa 1600. Compare impediment.
1
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 Frontier:
- 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 452:
2 more examples
- Games 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 20:
- There 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:
2
plural of impedimentum
- Synonyms
- impediments