Definition

To impede means to obstruct or slow down the progress of something or someone.

Pronunciation

US English

UK English


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Excerpts from News Articles

“That census will help us understand how star formation and its feedback imprint themselves on the interstellar medium, then give rise to the next generation of stars, or how it actually impedes the next generation of stars from being formed.”

Logo 2023-02-17 The Independent

“Another main challenge that we have for innovation is that it continues to hamper Europe’s performance in the persistent innovation divide between and within member states, which impedes the balance and inclusive recovery and the continuation of economic and social convergence in Europe,” she said.

Logo 2023-03-21 EURO News

Forcible adoptions risk impeding the possibility to return to Ukraine—both now and in the long term.

Logo 2023-03-22 EURO News

The exclusion of developing-country researchers reflects the general failure within academia to regard local contexts. As recent analysis of academic racism has shown, research institutions and processes can reflect and exacerbate bias, prejudice, and discrimination. Their lack of diversity constrains research quality and impact, and impedes efforts to eradicate poverty, improve living standards, and promote prosperity for hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Logo 2023-03-27 CGTN

While the participants at the BFA are debating the significance of inclusiveness, there have risen many impediments to this concept in recent times. Attempts at drawing ideological lines, group politics, and bloc confrontations can not only divide the world but also hamper global development. Likewise, waves of protectionism need to be discouraged and the Cold War mentality of the past needs to be shunned, since they are obsolete concepts in today's globalized world that thrives on inclusive growth.

Logo 2023-03-28 CGTN

The need to sign summit documentation by the heads of state is not an impediment to virtual attendance. Putin can sign the documents electronically or after the summit, if a non-electronic signature is required.

Logo 2023-03-28 The Conversation

This refusal to engage with our full racial history matters not primarily because it impedes our capacity to understand what happened, but because it thwarts our ability to understand what is going on now. “I am born with a past and to try to cut myself off from that past is to deform my present relationships,” the moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre writes in his book After Virtue. “The possession of an historical identity and the possession of a social identity coincide.”

Logo 2023-03-29 The Guardian

Unlike hip-hop music, amapiano is still in its infancy and exudes an infectious innocence coupled with multiple waves of mesmerising sounds and grooves. For now, there isn’t much of hip-hop’s bad blood, enragement or despair to impede the burgeoning scene. There’s something novel and expansive about the carefree and optimistic sounds of amapiano.

Logo 2023-03-30 The Conversation

Those groups are still able to buy kit from Intel and AMD , two American companies, and chipsets from TSMC , a Taiwanese chipmaker. But America could add these Huawei suppliers to the “entity list” of blacklisted firms, impeding the expansion of Huawei’s data centres.

Logo 2023-03-30 The Economist

But it’s also lawyer’s language to describe a more direct impediment to the president’s ability to govern: He might be in jail.

Logo 2023-03-30 The Conversation

One major impediment was the Army Corps’ cost-benefit analysis of the project, which calculated that the construction cost would outweigh the value of protecting a low-income rural area — a formula widely criticized for exacerbating racial and economic inequity.

Logo 2023-04-01 The Washington Post

The new details highlight the degree to which special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the potential mishandling of hundreds of classified national security papers at Trump’s Florida home and private club has come to focus on the obstruction elements of the case — whether the former president took or directed actions to impede government efforts to collect all the sensitive records.

Logo 2023-04-02 The Washington Post

Africa’s disgruntlement with the international court’s hypocrisy should not impede justice for Ukraine’s stolen children.

Logo 2023-04-03 Al Jazeera

The case drew attention when then-Attorney General Brian E. Frosh successfully sued for a restraining order against Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey R. Gahler, who Frosh argued was impeding his office’s investigation by withholding the footage and other evidence. The suit was part of Frosh’s efforts to effect a police accountability measure lawmakers adopted that directs state officials, rather than local law enforcement agencies, to independently investigate such shootings.

Logo 2023-04-03 The Washington Post

For Kerr, lockdown also became a period of intense personal change: he got sober and clean “after ruining my body for 40 years”. Then in 2021, he was hospitalised for six weeks after falling while exiting the band’s van, fracturing his pelvis in six places. His mobility is still impeded . “The day after I got out, I got septic arthritis, which nearly killed me,” he says.

Logo 2023-04-03 The Guardian

There really should be no impediment to granting a war hero asylum in the UK, particularly when the facts of his case are not in doubt. Britain has said it will not turn its back on these people. It is time to keep our word.

Logo 2023-04-04 The Independent

Thailand is widely suspected to be a quiet supporter of the Myanmar junta, a stance that has impeded the consensus-led 10-nation bloc.

Logo 2023-04-05 Asia News Network

Among the issues the EU chief wants to redress are unfair practices European businesses say impede their access to the Chinese market. She listed "increasing pressure to submit technology pressure", "excessive data requirements", and "insufficient enforcement of intellectual property rights" among the hurdles EU companies face to do business in China, and that put them at a "significant disadvantage" compared to Chinese companies that have much greater access to the European market.

Logo 2023-04-06 EURO News

The Marburg virus - which has a fatality rate up to 88 per cent - is a highly infectious viral haemorrhagic fever, meaning it affects multiple organ systems at once. It can cause bleeding in these organs, impeding the body’s ability to function.

Logo 2023-04-06 EURO News

Pine Gate had to terminate the project because it couldn't afford the new fees, its vice president of regulatory affairs, Brett White, told CNBC. "We view, as a company, the interconnection problem as the biggest impediment to the industry right now and the costs associated with interconnection are the biggest reason that a project dies on the vine," White said. "It's the biggest wild card you have going into the project development cycle.

Logo 2023-04-06 CNBC

Tsai arrived back in Taiwan on Friday, and said her government would not cease having exchanges with the world despite “ impediments .”

Logo 2023-04-07 CNN News

The statute makes it a felony to alter, destroy or mutilate a record, document or other object with the intent of making it unavailable in an official proceeding, or to “otherwise” obstruct, influence, or impede any official proceeding.

Logo 2023-04-07 CNN News

An analysis by the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion-rights think tank, found that abortion clinics in 2 percent of U.S. counties only offer abortion pills and don’t have a procedural option. Some of the states set to be most impacted — including Colorado, Pennsylvania and New Mexico — are serving their own residents and a large influx of patients from neighboring states with more restrictions. Guttmacher estimates the decision could impede access for at least 2.4 million people.

Logo 2023-04-07 Politico

Making matters far worse, the principal impediment to progress isn’t the difference between Republicans and Democrats, it’s between Republicans and other Republicans.

Logo 2023-04-07 MSNBC News

Nasim Heidari, 30, also from Iran, says people have been supportive and kind during her 12 months in Northern Ireland. But lack of permission to work has impeded integration. A trained architect, she would like to become a professional singer. Heidari recently began English lessons, a step to making Belfast home. “It’s a start,” she says.

Logo 2023-04-09 The Guardian

"Cost certainly is one of the impediments here," says Bausch. A company, "can have a great diagnostic test. But if it costs {$}100 per test – well, it's not going to be put in place in Democratic Republic of Congo."

Logo 2023-04-09 NPR

“We’re not the impediment , it’s the White House,” said Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn, whose state has four district court vacancies in addition to an open seat on the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals. “We’re standing ready to help in any way we can, but they are so slow.”

Logo 2023-04-10 CNN News

One common conservative critique is that intersectionality promotes identity politics, which leads to the fragmentation of society by emphasising differences rather than commonalities. They argue that this fragmentation results in social divisiveness and impedes progress towards a more unified society.

Logo 2023-04-10 The Spectator

These challenges only reinforce the underlying stigma around blue-collar work in Singapore, significantly impeding the industry from attracting young locals.

Logo 2023-04-10 Channel NewsAsia

Such a move could severely impede a critical arm of the American health care system and deepen acrimony surrounding the regulatory approval process, which was attacked by conservatives amid skepticism of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Logo 2023-04-10 CNN News

“This decision has ramifications that extend well beyond this case, setting a dangerous precedent for undermining the FDA and creating regulatory uncertainty that will impede the development of important new treatments and therapies,” Biotechnology Innovation Organization interim CEO Rachel King said on Saturday.

Logo 2023-04-10 Politico

increase our vulnerability to extinction threats jeopardise individual wellbeing, and impede moral advancement.

Logo 2023-04-10 The Conversation

“The continued academic progress of our students is our number one concern, and we will do all that we can so that their progress is not impeded by a strike,” he wrote.

Logo 2023-04-10 The Washington Post

“We have also made clear that we believe it is in both countries’ interests for these trade impediments to be removed.”

Logo 2023-04-11 Al Jazeera

Global export restrictions on critical materials have grown more than five-fold over the last decade, the OECD said on Tuesday, potentially impeding governments' efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

Logo 2023-04-11 Reuters