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Impedimenta

noun
1.
Any structure that makes progress difficult.  Synonyms: impediment, obstructer, obstruction, obstructor.
2.
The baggage and equipment carried by an army.






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"Impedimenta" Quotes from Famous Books



... revolutionists back into their own country. One troop, G, Third Cavalry, was ordered out for seven days' service, but when I joined the troop later as a correspondent, it had been in the field for three months, sleeping the entire time under canvas, and carrying all its impedimenta with it on pack mules. It had seldom, if ever, been near a town, and the men wore the same clothes, or what was left of them, with which they had started for a week's campaign. Had the Spaniards followed such a plan of attack as that when the revolution began, ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis

... calls with her mother, and in between the calls Mrs. Hilbery had rushed into shops and bought pillow-cases and blotting-books on no perceptible method for the furnishing of Katharine's house. Katharine had a sense of impedimenta accumulating on all sides of her. She had left her at length, and had come on to keep an engagement to dine with Rodney at his rooms. But she did not mean to get to him before seven o'clock, and so ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... it had run by Vicksburg. Ten miles farther down the river a landing place was found at Bruinsburg. By daylight, on the 1st of May, McClernand's corps and part of McPherson's had been ferried across, leaving behind all impedimenta, even the officers' horses, and fighting had already begun in rear of Port Gibson, about eight miles from the landing. The enemy made a desperate stand, but was defeated with heavy loss. Grand Gulf was evacuated that night, and the place became thenceforth a base of operations. Grant had ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen

... towards Chancellorsville, through the woods, up every side road and forest path, pours a stream of fugitives. Ambulances and oxen, pack-mules and ammunition-wagons, officers' spare horses mounted by runaway negro servants, every species of the impedimenta of camp-life, commissary sergeants on all-too-slow mules, teamsters on still-harnessed team-horses, quartermasters whose duties are not at the front, riderless steeds, clerks with armfuls of official papers, ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... themselves to leave Budiabad at once, and move to a greater distance from Jellalabad and their friends. For some preparation was not a difficult task. 'All my worldly goods,' wrote Captain Johnson, 'might be stowed away in a towel.' Others who possessed heavier impedimenta, were lightened of the encumbrance by the Ghilzai Sirdar, who plundered indiscriminately. The European soldiers were left behind at Budiabad, and the band of ladies and gentlemen started on the afternoon of April 10th, in utter ignorance of their destination, under ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes

... also contributed to the hollow the refuse of their household in broken boxes, earthenware, tin cans, and cast-off clothing; and it is not improbable that the site of the cabin was chosen with reference to this convenient disposal of useless and encumbering impedimenta. It was true that the locality offered little choice in the way of beauty. An outcrop of brown granite—a portent of higher altitudes—extended a quarter of a mile from the nearest fringe of dwarf laurel and "brush" in one direction; in the other an advanced file ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte

... billeted in Mericourt for two days. Here there was every indication of activity. Having been on a quiet front for several months the men were not used to the whir of a busy railhead. All manner of vehicles, guns, and other impedimenta of war were in evidence, and everyone was surprised to see some of Merryweather's fire engines, which were probably required for ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts

... P. R. proposals. Laurier's political activities consisted chiefly of being an acting secretary of sorts to the Liberal leader. He kept his references in order; handed him Hansards and blue-books in turn; summoned the pages to clear away the impedimenta and to keep the glass of water replenished—little services which it was clear he was glad to do for one who engaged his ardent affection and admiration. There were memories in the house of Laurier's eloquence; but memories only. During this ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe

... the Mud Turtle. The Pullman blanket lashed around the Mud Turtle cramped his style to a considerable degree, but for all of his impedimenta he was still active enough to threaten the peace-on-earth theory. The Wildcat spoke to him, "Boy, I sequesters you till de debbil leaves you. Mebbe by de time us gits to San F'mcisco you'll ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley

... rode off back along the track littered with their impedimenta, while the doctor and the others began to try and reduce the loads of the mules in ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... filed through the streets to the station. By the time the men reached the train they discovered that they could never make war laden down as they were by knapsacks filled with the preposterous impedimenta feminine ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... word after the ladies were left with Aubrey, who was in despair at not being allowed to follow Hector and Tom, but was left, as his prematurely classical mind expressed it, like the Gaulish women with the impedimenta in the marshes—whereas Tom had added insult to injury, by a farewell ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... after generation, the ancient drawing-room received its additional impedimenta without so much as ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter

... studied the link. This done, the intricate and fascinating subject of nervous dyspepsia had claimed his undivided attention. When he had finished his prolonged interview with Blandford Sikes, sidling back to the waiting-room to gather up various impedimenta, he had encountered the unfortunate clergyman whom he had kept waiting. Marcus Harding was the man. They exchanged only a couple of words, but the sight of the flaccid bulk, the hanging cheeks and hands, ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens

... should start the next morning for S. Romao, a town in the interior of Brazil, to be absent a week. He was then to go to the Hotel d'Europe, pay his bill, at the same time stating that he was to leave Rio by the 4 o'clock train the next morning, for San Paulo. As Mac had two trunks and other impedimenta befitting a man of his importance, it was necessary to take a carriage to the station, which was nearly a mile distant. It would be unsafe to go in a carriage belonging to the hotel; therefore, he was to say that a friend would call for him. As it was still two hours to ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... was no less happy; he was in comfortable quarters, which were a palace compared to his hut in Ujiji. Our store-rooms were full of the good things of this life, besides cloth, beads, wire, and the thousand and one impedimenta and paraphernalia of travel with which I had loaded over one hundred and fifty men at Bagamoyo. I had seventy-four loads of miscellaneous things, the most valuable of which were now to be turned over to Livingstone, for his march back to the ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... Champion Bay, to which you will at once despatch by sea the stores to be obtained here; and the men and horses should proceed overland without delay. You will be probably able to charter carts or drays to take most of your impedimenta from Geraldton to Mr. Burges's farthest out-station on the Murchison; this will save you 200 miles of packing, and husband the strength of ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... mine owner defiantly met his look, and then half-rose from his chair, and stared more coldly across the litter of papers, plans, and impedimenta on ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton

... Ayrault took Sylvia back to her mother, and, after pressing her hand and having one last long look into her—or, as he considered them, HIS—deep-sea eyes, he returned to the Callisto, and was standing at the foot of the telescopic aluminum ladder when his friends arrived. As all baggage and impedimenta bad been sent aboard and properly stowed the day before, the travellers had not to do but climb to and enter by the second-story window. It distressed Bearwarden that the north pole's exact declination on the 21st day ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... along the bank of the swiftly-flowing Wintinooski. There was Professor Skillings in his canoe, drifting rapidly into the middle of the current, and plainly without his paddle. Indeed, that useful—not to say necessary—instrument, capped the pile of Professor Skillings' impedimenta on the bank. He had evidently—in his usual absent-minded manner—stepped into his canoe and pushed off from shore ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe

... before all," he wrote in 1818, when beginning the Mass in D. All sorts of circumstances and influences were required to isolate him from the world to enable him the better to do his appointed work. Probably no other musician ever made so complete a surrender of all impedimenta for the sake of his art ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... are looking great," said Quin, with devouring eyes, as he surveyed her over the top of his impedimenta. ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice

... lbs. of beads, worth 40s., which still remained of the stock I brought from Cape Town, a small gipsy tent, just sufficient to sleep in, a sheep-skin mantle as a blanket, and a horse-rug as a bed. As I had always found that the art of successful travel consisted in taking as few "impedimenta" as possible, and not forgetting to carry my wits about me, the outfit was rather spare, and intended to be still more so when we should come to leave the canoes. Some would consider it injudicious to adopt this plan, but I had a secret conviction ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... seated at her writing-table in the drawing-room, which was choked by the eastern and Japanese impedimenta, the draperies, the krises, the metal bowls, the ivory boxes, which an Indian career seems so inevitably to entail. Sir John had brought back crates of the kind of foreign bric-a-brac cheap imitations of which ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... swept away books, needlework, and other impedimenta. It was evening recreation hour, so nearly all the Junior boarders were collected in the room. They viewed the ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil

... beholden, and quotes his Opinion, which is full and home, Constare arbitror (saith Talentonius)[D] debere concedi, Pygmaeos non solum olim fuisse, sed nunc etiam esse, & homines esse, nec parvitatem illis impedimenta esse quo minus sint & homines sint. But were there such Men Pygmies now in being, no doubt but we must have heard of them; some or other of our Saylors, in their Voyages, would have lighted on them. Tho' Aristotle is here quoted, yet he does not make them Men; So neither does ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson

... retires at night under the misapprehension that the following morning will find these seats still available. On ascending the companionway, however, one's gaze is met by a heterogeneous collection of impedimenta. The benches are buried as irretrievably as if they "had been carried into the midst of the sea." Almost anything may have been piled on them, from bales of hay—among which my wife once sat for two days—to the nucleus ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... be laid no one exactly knew. Certain it was that those who looked for the hatching of a swan, were confronted with a very ugly duckling indeed! Arms and ammunition were purchased, and these, concealed as gold-mining impedimenta, were smuggled into the country. Messrs. Leonard and Phillips, two prominent Reformers, consulted Mr. Rhodes as to future affairs, but Mr. Rhodes was in the awkward position of acting at one and the same time as Managing Director of the Consolidated ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... thoughtful observer confidence in ultimate success. Lord Wrexborough, silver-haired, florid and dignified, sat before a vast table laden with neatly arranged dispatch-boxes, books, documents tied with red tape, and the other impressive impedimenta which characterize the table of a Secretary of State. Quentin Gray, unable to conceal his condition of nervous excitement, stared from a ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer

... derelict cinema company advertised in a technical journal, had been impressed with the amount of the impedimenta which accompanied the proprietorship of the syndicate, had been seized with a brilliant idea, bought the property, lock, stock, and barrel, for two thousand pounds, for which sum, as an act of grace, the late proprietors allowed him to take over the contract of Mr. Lew Becksteine, ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace

... inside and slid down the smooth glass to the bottom of the sphere, then turned to take the cans of food and other impedimenta from Cavor. The interior was warm, the thermometer stood at eighty, and as we should lose little or none of this by radiation, we were dressed in shoes and thin flannels. We had, however, a ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells

... cautiously upstairs, motioned to Mona to make no sound, picked up various impedimenta, including books, vases, a statuette, and such things as he could find on the hall tables, added a good-sized rug, and then, also picking Mona up in his arms, he stealthily made his way downstairs again, and the ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells

... it, without impedimenta, no anchor, compass, provisions, water, no means of catching fish or fowl, and with rather light clothing, as we were dressed for work and not for protection against cold. But youth is optimistic and claims ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober

... minutes later we started, each of us carrying his share of the impedimenta. I think that Tommy was the only really cheerful member of the party, for he skipped about and barked, running backwards and forwards into the mouth of the cave, as though to ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... and ordered me home. I respectfully but firmly refused to go home bearless, and the editor fired me by wire. I fired the ingenious but sedentary assistant, discarded all the advice that had been unloaded upon me by the able bear-liars of Ventura, reduced my impedimenta to what one lone, lorn burro could pack, broke camp and struck for a better Grizzly pasture, determined to play the string out alone and in my own way. The place I selected for further operations was the regular beat of old Pinto, ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly

... men there were no difficulties; but the women and children had of course misunderstood their instructions. They should have gone direct to the Common, but had turned up here with all their impedimenta. They stood crowding together on both the side-walks; and when the procession got under way they broke up and attached themselves to its sides. They had fought through the campaign, and their place was beside their husbands ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... battlefield, in scholarship or in athletics gave him exquisite pleasure. The very last letter he wrote is irradiated with love of the old school. When he joined the Tank Corps, stripping, as it were, for the deadly combat, he sent to the depot at Boulogne all his impedimenta. But among the few cherished personal possessions that he took with him into the zone of death were two photographs—one of the College buildings, the other of the Playing Fields, this latter depicting the cricket matches ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... well to avoid a number of small parcels, but on this occasion it is doubly advisable. Even if the husband and wife can fix their minds on such prosaic things, it is hardly fair for her to hang him round with her bags, hat-boxes, and other feminine impedimenta. On the other hand, if he has brought his cycle, his golf clubs, his fishing-tackle, and his camera, his attention is bound to be divided between the safety of his possessions and the comfort of ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux

... got off within an hour short of two months. I enclose you a copy of the requisition, in some hope that it is not genuine—that you have never seen it. My dear General, this expanding and piling up of impedimenta has been, so far, almost our ruin, and will be our final ruin if it is not abandoned. If you had the articles of this requisition upon the wharf, with the necessary animals to make them of any use, and forage for the animals, you could not get ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... large to fit into them. He turned next to the top shelf of his cupboard; but here the nurse had stored Paul's old toys, his sand-pails, shovels and croquet-box. Every corner was packed with the vain impedimenta of living, and the mere thought of clearing a space in the chaos was too great ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... contains ample space for the luggage of sensible people; umbrellas and waterproof capes can be strapped on the intermediate cushion, and then, if the horses are provided with military halters and nosebags, you are prepared for every eventuality. To other impedimenta it is not amiss to add a couple of light saddles, so that, if necessary, some of the party may ride to ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... to a run, and lightened ship as he went, casting off his sack of oats, then his coat and such tools as he could spare; he might have been traced to the scene of disaster by his impedimenta strewing ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote

... has obviously been influenced by stories of the "Skilful Companions" cycle (see No. 11), where the hero merely directs his servants, doing none of the work himself. On the other hand, in 3, b, g, the wonderful companions are more or less impedimenta: the hero himself does all the hard work; they are merely his foil. For the "Genossen" in other Maerchen of "John the Bear" type, see Panzer, 66-74; Cosquin, 1 : ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... ample occasion and display a special aptitude for producing and using them, not always with very satisfactory results. It is not, perhaps, for us to suggest that the theological army in the past has been too much encumbered with impedimenta for effective aggression in the conflict against atheistic tendencies in modern science; and that in resisting attack it has endeavored to hold too much ground, so wasting strength in the obstinate defense of positions which have become unimportant as well as untenable. Some ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... spring-time, to sit under its shade and watch the street-life: the operations at the neighbouring dye-shop where gaudy cloths of blue and red are hanging out to dry, or, lower down, the movement at the wood-market—a large tract of "boulevard" encumbered with the impedimenta of nomadism. There is a ceaseless unloading of fuel here; bargains are struck about sheep and goats, the hapless quadruped, that refuses to accompany its new purchaser good-naturedly, being lifted up by the hind legs and made to ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas

... was too much for me. In planning out my manoeuvres I had taken his cooperation for granted. I had looked on him as so much baggage—the impedimenta of the retreating army. And, behold, ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... for an inspection of the elephant, but mounting my horse, at once set off to follow on the spoor of the two old fellows which the ostrich had alarmed. Fortunately, I fell in with a party of natives, who were on their way to the wagons with the impedimenta, and assisted by these, I had sanguine hopes of shortly overtaking the noble quarry. We had not gone far when two wild boars, with enormous tusks, stood within thirty yards of me: but this was no time to fire: and a little after a pair of white rhinoceroses ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various

... jocular advice from the male passengers the Fall of Rome was warped into Chadwick's Landing and the waiting groups came aboard. As they streamed on, bearing bundles and boxes and all the impedimenta of excursions, those already on board congregated on the after-deck to distinguish familiar faces. A few persons had come down to the landing merely ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... Valley dust. Horses lay stark across the way, or, dying, stared with piteous eyes. The sky was like a bowl of brass, and in the concave buzzards were sailing. All along there was underfoot much of soldiers' impedimenta—knapsacks, belts, accoutrements of all kinds, rolled blankets and oilcloths, canteens. Dead men did not lack. They lay in strange postures, and on all the dust was thick. There were many wounded; the greater number ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... acid, and other vegetable odoriferous substances and juices. It is a sugar with a kind of wild natural bread added. The manna of itself is both food and medicine, and the pungent vegetable extracts have rare virtues. Honey promotes the excretions and dissolves the glutinous and starchy impedimenta of the system. ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs

... ragged relatives, having nothing to do with vice or poverty in the remotest link of her connections—a woman fit to be the keeper of his house, the bearer of his name, the mother of his children. But for love, passion, enthusiasm, sentiment—Edgar thought all such emotional impedimenta as these not only superfluous, but oftentimes disastrous in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... the Presidente to endeavour to find me men and animals, as nothing would deter me from going on. If no Brazilians came, I said that I would go alone, but that the value of the expedition would naturally suffer, as I should thus have to leave behind all the instruments, cameras, and other impedimenta, which, single-handed, I ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... dwelling as a gypsy uses a moor: he had wandered about, living for three months in the west wing, three more in the east, again for six high up in the central portion of the great building, taking with him the rather simple impedimenta of his state, and arranging them as he chose. The presence of Sophia had, however, made at least one change in his existence. Little either of time or attention as he gave her, Michael was driven, by mere consciousness of her proximity, to fix upon some certain suite of rooms for the ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... trick of his senses or a bona-fide apparition? He had never heard of a ghost at Glenbogie—the house dated back some fifty years; Sir John Macquoich's tardy knighthood carried no such impedimenta. He looked down wonderingly on the flower in his buttonhole. Was there something uncanny in that innocent blossom? But here he was struck by another recollection, and examined the keyhole of his door. With the aid of the tortoiseshell hairpin he dislodged ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... good wheels and broad tyres (a great contrast to the wretched little gun wheels we had to get along with at one time) and on them there was room also for gun's crew's great-coats, leather gear, gun telescopes, and other impedimenta, which was ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne

... is a garrison town. For a hundred miles there have been only women and old men, but now there are only soldiers; they fill the streets; they crowd the doorways of the houses. The fields are filled with tents, with horses, with all the impedimenta of an army. The whole countryside is a place of arms. Every branch of French service is about you—Tunisians, Turcos, cavalry, the black, the brown, and the white—the men who yesterday or last week were ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds

... these trails stepped Samuel Mink, burdened only with his concertina and a box of cigars. I, loaded with seventy pounds of impedimenta including a moving-picture ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... the kind, and fancy you know it. Ah! here are the overalls. Now deeds, not words. I'll leave my coat, watch, cuffs, and all impedimenta with you, Mrs. Banning. Am I not a spectacle to men and gods?" he added, drawing up the garment, which ceased to be nether in that it ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... encampment was all hurry and bustle. An aide leaped upon his horse at head-quarters and dashed off on the road to the river, and we saw that the servants of General Hazen, our brigade commander, were stripping his baggage of the small impedimenta which accumulate so rapidly even in a few days of rest, but are abandoned when the army starts on an active campaign. It was not to be a mere change of camp, evidently, but a final adieu to the locality and a dash over the Tennessee—if we ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various

... was a hurried pounding of grain in the stone mortars, breakfasts even more hurried. Then again the trumpets called out their signal. Busy hands tore up the tent pegs, other hands were folding the coverings, gathering up the poles and impedimenta, and loading them on the ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis

... back, so that the silent clerks might have the benefit of every ray of daylight filtering wanly through Mercer's murky air. A long table stood in the middle of the room; generally it was covered with blue-prints, or the usual impedimenta of an office. But it was not an office table; it was of mahogany, scratched and dim to be sure, but matching the ancient claw-footed sideboard whose top was littered with letter files, silver teapots and sugar-bowls, and stacks of newspapers. ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland

... railway itself deserves almost unmitigated praise, and only needs to be understood to be appreciated. On arrival at the station the traveller hands over his impedimenta to the baggage master, who fastens a small metal disk, bearing the destination and a number, to each package, and gives the owner a duplicate check. The railway company then becomes responsible for the luggage, and holds it until reclaimed by presentation of the ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... restlessness, as he passed among them resting his hand first on one, then on another brawny shoulder, to get right forward to the sharply-pointed prow, and sit there looking up the river; while his uncle rearranged some of the packages and impedimenta ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... rescued. Six were dead, and their bodies were brought to the surface and to the arms of women whose breadwinners were gone; whose husbands or sons or brothers had been struck out into darkness without time to strip themselves of the impedimenta of the soul. Two were left below, and these were brothers who had married but three months before. They were strong, buoyant men of twenty-five, with life just begun, and home still welcome and alluring—warm-faced, bonny women to meet them ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... tree, on the north bank of the river, about a mile from that secluded Eden, and four or five from Charley's hut. I had camped at dusk on the previous evening; and the equipment of my two horses, with other impedimenta, was lying about. A small damper was maturing under the handful of fire, and a quart pot of tea was slowly collecting a scum of dirt which made it nothing the worse to a man of my nurture. Pup was reposing on my possum rug, and Cleopatra ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... not, who burden themselves by over much comfort, or, what comes to the same thing from my point of view, with too much fuss and fad as to their impedimenta? Some anglers whom I meet really never appear to be happy unless staggering along like Issachar "couching down between two burdens." Half of the gear is mere ballast, never produced for actual service from one year's end to the other, but always carried with patience most instructive ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... Street. There were numberless details to be looked to. His wardrobe, among the rest, needed replenishing down to the most unconsidered button, for Flagg had dropped into our little world with as few impedimenta as if he had been a newly born infant. Though my condition, like that desired by Agur, the son of Jakeh, was one of neither poverty nor riches, greenbacks in those days were greenbacks. I mention the fact in order ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... principle of the umbrella," he said to his friend; "in fact, it was the umbrella that suggested it to me. If it could be made very light so as not to add seriously to the impedimenta at present carried by the soldier, it seems to me it would be exceedingly useful. Instead of being circular as an umbrella is, it must be oblong with sharp ends. It would have to be arranged so as to ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr

... fighting-line, but who have no idea of being there. Lines of carts conveying stores, clothing, trunks and miscellaneous belongings were soon pouring towards the British Legation, and long before nightfall the spacious compounds were so crowded with impedimenta and masses of human beings that one could hardly move there. It was a ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... nursed his dispatch-box. But as the "baggage-smashers" were taking down our luggage, and a chambermaid was lounging officiously about in search of a tip, he laid it down for a second or two on the centre table while he collected his other immediate impedimenta. He couldn't find his cigarette-case, and went back to the bedroom for it. I helped him hunt, but it had disappeared mysteriously. That moment lost him. When we had found the cigarette-case, and returned to the sitting-room—lo, and behold! the dispatch-box was missing! Charles questioned ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen

... climate and soil and rainfall. And one of your first discoveries is that the books of the travelers are mostly wrong. What to them was perhaps a paradise of plant or animal life is to you, moving with your vast impedimenta, a veritable purgatory. You soon come to agree with Scripture that all men are liars, and from this rule you do not even except the missionaries who write with their heads in the clouds; nor do you except the writers of intelligence books compiled in Whitehall from the hunting tales of the travelers ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various

... suspected, and we told him "underneath." He scratched his head and announced that he was sent to look for it. His qualifications consisted apparently in his having coal-mined. But he seemed confident of detecting the quicker combustion sort, until he asked for necessary impedimenta. It seems that no good collier can detect an H.E. or any sort of mine without a pail of water, and a hole about 2,000 feet deep, and a pulley, and a rope ladder and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various

... had ever packed a saddle before; and certainly not one of the mules had ever carried, or to all appearances, ever meant to carry, a pack. It was a fight between man and beast every day - twice a day indeed, for we halted to rest and feed, and had to unpack and repack our remaining impedimenta in payment for ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke



Words linked to "Impedimenta" :   obstacle, encumbrance, interference, obstruction, bar, baggage, hitch, tumbler, stoppage, stop, occlusion, closure, hinderance, obstructor, structure, construction, block, preventative, incumbrance, hindrance, barrier, impediment, preventive, blockade, blockage



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