different between bulwark vs impediment

English

Etymology

From Middle English bulwerk, from Middle Dutch bolwerk, bolwerc and Middle Low German bolwerk, equivalent to bole (“tree trunk”) +? work. Cognate with German Bollwerk, Danish bolværk, Dutch bolwerk. Doublet of boulevard (from French boulevard, from Dutch); cognate with Portuguese and Spanish baluarte and Italian baluardo.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?b?l.w?k/
• (US) enPR: bo?ol'w?rk, bo?ol'wôrk, IPA^(key): /?b?l.w?k/, /?b?l.w??k/

Noun

bulwark (plural bulwarks)

1. A defensive wall or rampart.
2. A defense or safeguard.

   • The royal navy of England hath ever been its greatest defence, […] the floating bulwark of the island.

3. A breakwater.
4. (nautical) The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard.
5. (figuratively) Any means of defence or security.

Translations

Verb

bulwark (third-person singular simple present bulwarks, present participle bulwarking, simple past and past participle bulwarked)

1. (transitive) To fortify something with a wall or rampart.
2. (transitive) To provide protection of defense for something.

English

Etymology

From Middle English impediment, borrowed from Latin impedimentum.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?m?p?d?m?nt/

Noun

impediment (plural impediments)

1. A hindrance; that which impedes or obstructs progress.
   • 1549, The Booke of Common Prayer and Administracion of the Sacramentes, “Of Matrimonye,”^[1]

     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.

   • c. 1592, William Shakespeare, Richard III, Act V, Scene 2,^[2]

     Thus far into the bowels of the land

     Have we marched on without impediment.

   • 1720, Alexander Pope, letter to Robert Digby dated 20 July, 1720, in Mr. Pope’s Literary Correspondence for Thirty Years; from 1704 to 1734, London: E. Curll, 1735, p. 129,^[3]

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

   • 1993, Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries, Toronto: Random House of Canada, Chapter Two, p. 64,^[5]

     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.

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Mark 7.32,^[6]

     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,^[7]

     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 […]

   • 1858, Thomas Carlyle, History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, Volume 2, Book 5, Chapter 6, p. 9,^[8]

     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.

   • 1931, Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key, New York: Vintage, 1972, Chapter 3, p. 56,^[9]

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

3. (chiefly in the plural) Baggage, especially that of an army; impedimenta.
   • 1913, Thomas McManus, “The Battle of Irish Bend” in The Twenty-Fifth Regiment Connecticut Volunteers in the War of the Rebellion, Rockville, Connecticut, p. 36,^[10]

     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.

Synonyms

• hindrance
• obstruction
• obstacle
• See also Thesaurus:hindrance

Derived terms

Related terms

• impede
• impedimenta

Translations

References

• John A. Simpson and Edward S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) , “impediment”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ?ISBN
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “impediment”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Romanian

Etymology

From Latin impedimentum

Noun

impediment n (plural impedimente)

1. impediment

Declension