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  1. encumber love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To put a heavy load on; burden: a hiker who was encumbered with a heavy pack; a life that has always been encumbered with responsibilities.
  2. v. To hinder or impede the action or performance of: restrictions that encumber police work.
  3. v. To burden with legal or financial obligations: an estate that is encumbered with debts.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To clog or impede with a load, burden, or other hindrance; render difficult or laborious in motion or operation; embarrass; overload; perplex; obstruct.
  2. Specifically To place (property) under a charge or servitude; load with debt or liability: as, to encumber an estate with mortgages, or with a widow's dower; an encumbered title. See encumbrance, 3. Synonyms To oppress, overload, hinder, entangle, handicap, weigh down.
  3. n. An encumbrance; a hindrance.

Wiktionary

  1. v. transitive to load down something with a burden
  2. v. transitive to restrict or block something with a hindrance or impediment
  3. v. transitive to add a legal claim or other obligation

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To impede the motion or action of, as with a burden; to retard with something superfluous; to weigh down; to obstruct or embarrass
  2. v. To load with debts, or other legal claims.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. hold back

Etymologies

  1. From Old French encombrer, from en- + combrer ("to hinder"); see cumber. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English encombren, from Old French encombrer, to block up : en-, in; see en-1 + combre, hindrance (from Gaulish *comboros). (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

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‘encumber’ has been looked up 3842 times, loved by 4 people, added to 27 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 14.