The Russian word is borrowed from English. The spelling and pronunciation differ just enough to suit the Russian tongue.
On April 15th proceedings for the "impichmyent" of Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, President of the Russian Federation, will begin in the Lower House of parliament, the State Duma. It is there, however, that the similarities to the impeachment of that other president come to an abrupt end.
Not surprisingly, when his age and physical condition are taken into consideration, there is no question of sexual peccadilloes being involved. Neither is there an independent counsel to act as a "Red Starr", or, indeed, the slightest possibility of Mr Yeltsin being ousted from office.
In the course of the proceedings Mr Yeltsin will hold one very distinct advantage over President Clinton. Men of probity such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison drafted the American Constitution.
Russia's basic law is far more modern and stems from what might be termed as an "unimpeachable source" in the form of Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin himself. Two months after the shelling of parliament by pro-Yeltsin forces in October 1993, Mr Yeltsin put a new constitution to the Russian people in a referendum which was carried by a slim and contested margin. Under this law the provisions for impeachment are so complicated as to make the sacking of the president impossible.
But there was one loophole which Mr Yeltsin's lawyers did not foresee. A constitutional clause states that the president loses his right to dissolve parliament while an impeachment motion is before the house.
Yesterday, the Duma moved to start that process and nominated April 15th as the commencement date for preliminary hearings. From then onward, therefore, parliament is likely to start making life very difficult for Mr Yeltsin in the knowledge he can do little about it without breaking his own constitution.
Since there is no chance of actually impeaching the president the legislators from the Duma, dominated by the large Communist bloc, have decided to throw the book at Mr Yeltsin. Among the items on the impeachment bill are: "genocide of the Russian people", causing the disintegration of the Soviet Union, allowing the armed forces of Russia to collapse, starting the disastrous war in Chechnya and shelling the parliament in 1993.
The Duma has already shown that it is prepared to cause trouble for Mr Yeltsin and his associates by introducing a "tax the rich" bill yesterday. They had previously voted to return a massive statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the Polish communist who founded the forerunner of the KGB, to its position in the square in front of the Lubyanka building in central Moscow.
In a separate development the Duma's speaker, communist deputy Mr Gennady Seleznyov, said that parliament would formally propose the ratification of the START-2 strategic arms reduction treaty and that this might be in place before the visit of the Prime Minister, Mr Yevgeny Primakov, to the US next week.
Reuters adds: A group of US Congressmen yesterday held out hope that they had eased some of Russia's concerns about Washington's plans to build a Star Wars-style missile defence umbrella.
But after two hours of talks with Russian parliamentarians, the US delegation acknowledged resistance remained to a project that is widely seen as one of the main problems dogging the increasingly difficult Russian-US relationship. Deputies in the State Duma lower house voiced fears that the system would violate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.