impedimenta

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin impedimenta, circa 1600. Compare impediment.

noun

1. Equipment intended for an activity that serves as more of a hindrance than a help, especially military baggage.
   On the plains they will have horses dragging travoises, dogs with travoises, women and children loaded with impedimenta. 1892, Julian Ralph, On Canada's Frontier
   Dashing back to my compartment, I grabbed my impedimenta - what my companion thought of the maniac who alighted at a station only half-way to the first booked stop I don't know ! - got out, hurried under the subway, and was into my 10.45 comfortably before its departure. 1939 June, “Pertinent Paragraphs: A Surprise at Didcot”, in Railway Magazine, page 452
   Games impedimenta — hockey-sticks, boxing-gloves, a burst football, a pair of sweaty shorts turned inside out — lay all over the floor, and on the table there was a litter of dirty dishes and dog-eared exercise-books. 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, page 20
2. plural of impedimentum