• (RP) IPA: /ɪmˈpiːtʃmənt/
• (GA) IPA: /imˈpitʃmənt/

impeachment

1. (countable) The act#Noun|act of calling into question or challenge#Verb|challenging the accuracy or propriety of something.

   Synonyms: deprecation, depreciation, discrediting, disparagement

   • 1588, G[abriel] H[arvey], “The Fourth Letter. To the Same Favourable or Indifferent Reader.”, in Fovre Letters, and Certaine Sonnets, especially Touching Robert Greene, and Other Parties by Him Abused: […], London: Imprinted by Iohn Wolfe, for Edward White, OCLC 84013514 ↗; republished as J[ohn] P[ayne] C[ollier], editor, Fovre Letters, and Certaine Sonnets (Miscellaneous Tracts Temp. Eliz. & Jac. I), [London: s.n., 1870], OCLC 907145924 ↗, page 58 ↗:

     The leaſt may thinke upon Fabius Maximus, who with an honourable obſtinacy purſued the courſe of his owne platforme, notwithſtanding a thouſand empeachments; and although ſlowly, with much murmuring, yet effectually with more reputation, atchieved his politicke purpoſe: [...]

   • 1643, William Prynne, “The Treachery and Disloyalty of Papists to Their Soveraignes, in Doctrine and Practise. […] The Second Edition, Enlarged.”, in The Soveraigne Povver of Parliaments and Kingdomes: Divided into Fovre Parts. Together with an Appendix: […], printed at London: For Michael Sparke Senior, OCLC 22720680 ↗, page 105 ↗:

     [T]he Soveraign Power, and Iuriſdiction both in the Roman and German Empires, and in moſt forraign Chriſtian Kingdoms, was, and yet is, in the Senate, People, Parliaments, States, Dyets; yet this is no empeachment at all to their royall Supremacies, or Titles of Supreme Heads, and Governours, within their own Dominions, [...]

   1. (countable, law) A demonstration in a court of law, or before another finder of fact, that a witness#Noun|witness was ingenuine before, and is therefore less likely to tell the truth now.
   2. (countable, law, Britain) An accusation that a person has committed a crime against the state#Noun|state, such as treason.
   3. (countable, law, chiefly, US) The act of impeaching or charge#Verb|charging a public#Adjective|public official#Noun|official with misconduct, especially if serious, often with the aim#Noun|aim of having the official dismissed from office.
      • 1788, Publius [pseudonym; Alexander Hamilton], “Number LXV. A Further View of the Constitution of the Senate, in Relation to Its Capacity as a Court for the Trial of Impeachments.”, in The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution, […] In Two Volumes, volume II, New York, N.Y.: Printed and sold by J. and A. M'Lean, […], OCLC 642792893 ↗, page 211 ↗:

        The awful diſcretion, which a court of impeachments muſt neceſſarily have, to doom to honour or to infamy the moſt confidential and the moſt diſtinguiſhed characters of the community, forbids the commitment of the truſt to a ſmall number of perſons.

2. (uncountable) The state#Noun|state of being impeached.
3. (uncountable, archaic) Hindrance; impediment; obstruction.
   • 1599, William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act III, scene vi], page 81 ↗, column 2:

     Turne thee back, / And tell thy King, I doe not ſeeke him now, / But could be willing to march on to Calais#English|Callice, / Without impeachment: [...]

• empeach
• empeachment
• impeach
• impeachability

• impeacher
• unimpeachability
• unimpeachable

• German: Abqualifizierung, Diskreditierung, Herabwürdigung, Infragestellen, Infragestellung

• German: Anklage wegen Landesverrats, Beschuldigung des Landesverrats, Anklage wegen eines Staatsschutzdelikts

• French: destitution
• German: Amtsenthebung, Amtsenthebungsverfahren
• Portuguese: destituição, impugnação
• Russian: импи́чмент
• Spanish: impeachment, desafuero, destitución, juicio político, suspensión