1830: impeach Dec 19, 2019

The term 'impeachment' has come up a fair amount in the last few weeks. This will not clarify the process itself, but it's interesting nevertheless to look into where it came from. The word 'impeach' has a 'im-' prefix, which is just how the negating prefix 'in-' changes before a b/p/m, however there is no 'peachment' (though there is an unrelated 'peach' fruit). The reason for this is the same as for 'impede', becasue they come from the same root: the Latin 'ped' meaning 'foot', basically resulting in 'to stop', or more literally in the Latin 'impedīre', 'to ensnare' (think of bear-traps). An earlier, though, false etymology assumed the word to originate from 'impetere' (attack), and was actually a specific kind of Roman punishment of throwing someone in the water while in a sacl, but this is not the root.

Support Word Facts at patreon.com/wordfacts