cumber
English
Alternative forms
- cumbre (archaic)
Etymology
From the (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English combren, borrowed from the second element of Old French encombrer. Cognate with German kümmern (“to take care of”).
Pronunciation
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 333: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "UK" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ˈkʌmbə/
- Rhymes: -ʌmbə(ɹ)
Verb
cumber (third-person singular simple present cumbers, present participle cumbering, simple past and past participle cumbered)
- (transitive, dated) To slow down; to hinder; to burden.
- Dryden
- Why asks he what avails him not in fight, / And would but cumber and retard his flight?
- John Locke
- The multiplying variety of arguments, especially frivolous ones, […] but cumbers the memory.
- 1825 June 22, [Walter Scott], chapter IV, in Tales of the Crusaders. […], volume I (The Betrothed), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 71:
- Wounded and overthrown, the Britons continued their resistance, clung round the legs of the Norman steeds, and cumbered their advance; while their brethren, thrusting with pikes, proved every joint and crevice of the plate and mail, or grappling with the men-at-arms, strove to pull them from their horses by main force, or beat them down with their bills and Welch hooks.
- 1886, Sir Walter Scott, The Fortunes of Nigel. Pub.: Adams & Charles Black, Edinburgh; page 321:
- […] the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him.
- 1911, Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson:
- Why had he not killed himself long ago? Why cumbered he the earth?
- Dryden
Synonyms
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
to slow down, to hinder, to burden
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See also
References
- Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “cumber”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.