Impeachment

How to spell impeachment

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce impeachment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does impeachment mean?

1. nounThe formal process of charging a holder of public office with serious misconduct, often as the first stage toward removal from office.
2. nounIn law, the act of calling a witness's truthfulness or a piece of evidence into question.

Impeachment in a sentence

• The committee voted to begin impeachment proceedings against the governor.

• The defence relied on the impeachment of the only eyewitness.

• The scandal raised serious questions about possible impeachment of the president.

• The lawyer prepared a careful impeachment of the contradictory testimony.

Where does impeachment come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Late Latin verb impedicare, meaning 'to catch, entangle, or trap', which was built from in- ('into' or 'on') and pedica, 'a shackle or fetter' that bound the feet, itself from pes, pedis meaning 'foot'. The literal early image was of catching someone by the legs, the same foot-binding idea that gives us 'impede'. The verb passed into Old French as empechier, 'to hinder or impede', and English borrowed it in the 1300s as 'impeach', at first simply meaning to hinder or accuse. By the late medieval period it took on the specific legal sense of bringing a formal charge of misconduct against a public official, and the noun 'impeachment' followed for that act. The hidden 'pea' spelling, with no obvious link to fruit, is a clue to the buried Latin 'foot' root that learners often forget.

How the word is built

• im- (from Latin in-: into, against)
• peach (from Latin pedica: a shackle or fetter, via Old French empechier: to hinder)
• -ment (noun suffix: the act or result of)