Definition:
v. hinder; charge with improper conduct; challenge validity of; try to discredit
Example:
A series of accidents impede the launching of the space shuttle.
Sentence in Classic:
The carriage stopped, the doctor alighted, walked swiftly back to where I had also halted, and told me in an excellent sardonic fashion that he feared the road was narrow, and that he hoped his carriage did not impede the passage of my bicycle.
The Return of Sherlock Holmes By Arthur Conan Doyle
ContextThere being now people enough present to impede the work, the sobered man put himself at the head of the rest, or was put there by the general consent, and made a large ring round the Old Hell Shaft, and appointed men to keep it.
Hard Times By Charles Dickens
ContextNorris might never have saved her money; but having no care of that kind, there was nothing to impede her frugality, or lessen the comfort of making a yearly addition to an income which they had never lived up to.
Mansfield Park By Jane Austen
ContextWhen the only chain remaining unbroken was that which closed the public square, the alarm having now been given, the hammerman was so impeded by the crowd pressing behind him that he could not raise his arm to strike freely.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius By Niccolo Machiavelli
ContextHe lived long and happily with Rowena, for they were attached to each other by the bonds of early affection, and they loved each other the more, from the recollection of the obstacles which had impeded their union.