Impede: To hinder; to stop in progress; to obstruct.
Yesterday, I blogged the word “expedite.” When you break it down, to expedite, is to un-shackle the feet. Once the feet are free, things happen faster.
To impede someone is the exact opposite. The Latin verb impedio is a combination of in and pedes, feet. To impede is entangle the feet.
If you impede progress, you are slowing things down.
The noun, impediment, is a derivative of the verb impede. Now things get interesting. In Latin, impedimenta, is a hindrance, an impediment, or the heavy baggage of an army.
Wherever the Roman army went, the “impedimenta” followed. To move quickly, the army would sometimes jettison the impedimenta. Without all of the extra “stuff,” the soldiers could more easily move throughout the empire.
There is a lesson for all of us here:
