[syn: stultification, constipation, impairment, deadening]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Impairment \Im*pair"ment\, n. [OE. enpeirement, OF. empirement.]
The state, act, or process of being impaired; injury. "The
impairment of my health." --Dryden.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
impairment
n 1: the occurrence of a change for the worse [syn: damage,
harm, impairment]
2: a symptom of reduced quality or strength [syn:
deterioration, impairment]
3: the condition of being unable to perform as a consequence of
physical or mental unfitness; "reading disability"; "hearing
impairment" [syn: disability, disablement, handicap,
impairment]
4: damage that results in a reduction of strength or quality
5: the act of making something futile and useless (as by
routine) [syn: stultification, constipation,
impairment, deadening]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
72 Moby Thesaurus words for "impairment":
adulteration, attrition, curtailment, cut, cutting, damage,
debilitation, decrease, decrement, defectibility, defectiveness,
deficiency, depletion, depreciation, derogation, deterioration,
detraction, detriment, diminution, dip, disadvantage,
disparagement, drawback, enfeeblement, erroneousness, extraction,
fallibility, faultiness, flaw, handicap, harm, hurt, immaturity,
imperfection, impurity, inaccuracy, inadequacy, inadequateness,
incompleteness, inexactitude, inexactness, injury, lack, lessening,
liability, loss, loss of ground, marring, mediocrity, mischief,
patchiness, prejudice, reduction, remission, retraction,
retrenchment, shortage, shortcoming, shortening, shrinkage,
sketchiness, step backward, truncation, undermining, undevelopment,
unevenness, unperfectedness, unsoundness, vitiation, want,
weakening, worsening