cumber
verbEtymology
From Middle English komber, kumbre, cumbre, combre (“distress; destruction”). Used in 14th century Middle English in the very scarcely attested “destruction” sense but not in common use until the 16th century; at first chiefly Scots, where it is also spelled cummer. Further etymology is uncertain, the term is either: * an aphetic form of encomber, encumbir, encumbre (“trouble; misfortune; harm, ruin”), itself from Old French encombre (“a hindrance, difficulty”), see Etymology 1 and French encombrer for further etymology; or, * cognate with Middle High German kumber (German Kummer), Middle Low German kummer, and Dutch kommer with which it strikingly shares the meaning “trouble, distress”, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *kumbr (“burden, trouble, sorrow”); or, * a deverbal from cumber.
- derived from *kombereti✻
- derived from cumulus
- derived from encombrer
- inherited from combren
Definitions
To slow down
To slow down; to hinder; to burden; to encumber.
- Why asks he what avails him not in fight, / And would but cumber and retard his flight?
- The multiplying variety of arguments, especially frivolous ones, […] but cumbers the memory.
Trouble, distress.
- Fleet foot on the correi, / Sage counsel in cumber, / Red hand in the foray, / How sound is thy slumber!
Something that encumbers
Something that encumbers; a hindrance, a burden.
›+ 1 more definitionshow fewer
Clipping of cucumber.
The neighborhood
Derived
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for cumber. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA