Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To weigh down; burden: was cumbered with many duties.
- v. To hamper or hinder, as by being in the way: was cumbered with a long poncho.
- v. To litter; clutter up: Weeds cumbered the garden paths.
- v. Archaic To bother; distress.
- n. A hindrance; an encumbrance.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To burden or obstruct with or as with a load or weight, or any impediment; load excessively or uselessly; press upon; choke up; clog.
- To be a clog to; hinder by obstruction; hamper in movement.
- To trouble; perplex; embarrass; distract.
- n. That which cumbers; a burden; a hindrance; an obstruction.
- n. Embarrassment; disturbance; distress; trouble.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive, dated To slow down, to hinder, to burden.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To rest upon as a troublesome or useless weight or load; to be burdensome or oppressive to; to hinder or embarrass in attaining an object, to obstruct or occupy uselessly; to embarrass; to trouble.
- n. obsolete Trouble; embarrassment; distress.
WordNet 3.0
- v. hold back
Etymologies
- From the Middle English combren. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English combren, to annoy, from Old French combrer, from combre, hindrance, from Vulgar Latin *comboros, of Celtic origin. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The word cumber here means to render barren or sterile.”
“Such trifles at best come under the head of what old Warner would have called cumber-minds.”
“He made this plea, not with an armoury of Greek learning, such as cumber Virgil and Horace, but with an original passion.”
The Elegies of Tibullus Being the Consolations of a Roman Lover Done in English Verse
“Whereupon the hawker took a "cumber" from his barrow, bit off the end, and chewed it till the sap squirted.”
“Why should they cumber their strength with his weakness?”
“It wasn't a hunting theme but the groom and groomsmen did were camo cumber buns.”
“When a man is free much may go unquestioned, which, should he be rash enough to cumber himself with domestic ties, society will instantly challenge.”
“And, while it is not nice that these men should die, it is ordained that they must die, and we should not quarrel with them if they cumber our highways and kitchen stoops with their perambulating carcasses.”
“In this painting, t looks like the vest or cumber band they wore as a bodice outside the peasant blouse, was of tapestry or a colorful print.”
The Colorful Garments Painted by Eugene de Blaas (1815-1894)
“I carry a 4 gallon plactic milk carton on the back rack to hold my other junk and teh cumber long fis inside just right.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘cumber’.
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Muse's tacet ,to learn
Music brings silence's to raging thoughts and temperament , calm, as it is our object of definite purpose.
tacet, cadence, tempo, treble clef, penultimate, lexicon, origin, orchestra, kantele, magus, eros, coalesce and 248 more...
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Unknown
coalition, cabinet, tweet, defuse, steep, ancestral, mindset, breach, infraction, egregious, curb, backbite and 282 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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JesusIsLord's Words
debauchery, plethora, wiki, numinous, wormwood, scribe, gelded, mithridate, orthogonal, jaculiferous, jaculate, jactitation and 415 more...
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(more or less) Temporary Urth List
Temporary list is temporary.
Collecting a few words here, which are then to be alloted to other lists.vassal, gnaw, putrescence, liege, pederasty, disseminate, loot, waning, fitful, hiatuse, plow, pious and 292 more...
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Jane Eyre
abigail, sanguine, chancel, bourne, peremptorily, parley, unwonted, fagging, convolvuli, tarry, insuperable, execrations and 190 more...
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Wordie/Wordnik Curio Cabinet
Oddments culled from my "main" lists that belong in a display cabinet of their own, plus sundry other curiosities. :-)
zeugma, ziggurat, xiphoid, xeric, whizgigging, whangdoodle, viviparous, vivific, vinolent, verjuice, vellicate, velleity and 1193 more...
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another yet
anneal, copepod, cuckoo, fathead, intone, patter, cabriole, knickknack, boodle, kit, estrange, forebode and 209 more...
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Angharad's Words
filtrum, aglet, cathect, anent, crepuscular, rigmarole, exert, liripipe, pekoe, perfuse, langerhans, vegemite and 41 more...
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sans prefix
cumber, fatigable, wieldy, ruly, prandial, humously, combobulate, couth, crepit, dain, prave, ert and 25 more...
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To The Lighthouse
Words gathered while reading To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.
ermine, prolegomenon, blandishment, hindustanee, greatcoat, absorbedly, cyclamen, jacmanna, pampas, covey, colloquy, cumber and 59 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for cumber.
madmouth how it minces! there should be a "Mincing words" list Sep 15, 2009
bilby
I love to steal awhile away
From every cumbering care,
And spend the hours of setting day
In humble, grateful prayer.
- Phebe (Hinsdale) Brown, 'Private Devotion'. Sep 15, 2009