impediment

noun

1. A hindrance; that which impedes or obstructs progress; impedance.

   “I require and charge you (as you will aunswere at the dreadefull daye of iudgemente, when the secretes of all hartes shalbee disclosed) that if either of you doe knowe any impedimente why ye maie not bee lawfully ioyned together in matrimonie, that ye confesse it.”

   “Thus far into the bowels of the land Have we marched on without impediment.”

   “Your kind Deſire to knovv the State of my Health had not been unſatiſfied of ſo long, had not that ill State been the Impediment.”

   “I had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and ignorantly I had repined.”

   “Patterns incised on this mineral form seem to evade the eye; you have to stand at a certain distance, and in a particular light, to make them out. This impediment is part of the charm for him.”

2. A disability, especially one affecting the hearing or speech.

   “Working in a noisy factory left me with a slight hearing impediment.”

   “And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him.”

   “1730, Joseph Addison, The Evidences of the Christian Religion, London: J. Tonson, Additional Discourses, Section 10, p. 308, Let us suppose a person blind and deaf from his birth, who being grown to man’s estate, is by the Dead-palsy, or some other cause, deprived of his Feeling, Tasting, and Smelling; and at the same time has the impediment of his Hearing removed, and the film taken from his eyes […]”

   “Better for you not to be tall! In fact it is almost a kindness of Heaven to be gifted with some safe impediment of body, slightly crooked back or the like, if you much dislike the career of honor under Friedrich Wilhelm.”

   “[…] Walter Ivans replied as rapidly as the impediment in his speech permitted.”

3. (in-plural)Baggage, especially that of an army; impedimenta.

   “We were all on foot, officers and men alike. Our horses, baggage, and impediments had been left at Brashear to follow the column of General Emory.”