diriment impediment
noun
Simple meaning
An impediment that nullifies marriage.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
dihruhmuhntimpehduhmuhntIPA pronunciation (US)
dɪɹəməntɪmpɛdəmənt
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Roman Catholicism
An impediment that nullifies marriage.
Roman Catholicismcanon law
An impediment that invalidates a marriage (such as the existence of a prior marriage)
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: (Roman Catholicism) An impediment that nullifies marriage.
Used this way, diriment impediment is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in family or home contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Family/home
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.