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encumber

UK/ɪnˈkʌmbə(ɹ)/US/ɪnˈkʌmbə(ɹ)/
verbC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: encumbered, encumbering

To encumber is to burden somebody so they cannot move freely. Encumbered with debt, encumber the estate, unencumbered by doubt.

In property law an encumbrance is a legal claim on land, such as a mortgage, and land free of them is unencumbered. In ordinary use it means weighed down by anything at all.

Definitions of encumber

  1. 1verbencumberTo burden somebody so they cannot move freely.C2

    “Heavy winter coats encumbered the climbers as they scrambled over the rocks.”

encumber is a burdening.

Where it comes from

Old French encombrer means to block or hinder, from a word for an obstruction.

  1. Old French

    encombrer

  2. Middle English

    encombren

  3. English, today

    encumber

Built from

  • combrer · Old French — to hinder

From Middle English encombren, from Old French encombrer, from en- + combrer (“to hinder”) (See cumber). by surface analysis, en + en + cumber.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

encumber in the wild

  • Morrison also set important precedent determining the scope of Congress's ability to encumber the president's authority to remove officers of the United States from office.

    Morrison v. Olson

  • Vast works of other ages encumber all Hain, and are no more and no less venerable or interesting to the Hainish than the rest of the landscape.

    A Man of the People (short story)

  • If the claim has been reduced to a judgement, what assets does the judgement encumber?

    Asset protection

  • Foul ground extends a short distance from the head, and sunken rocks encumber Abbot cove, the bight close east of Eastern point.

    Abbott Cove

  • Large ice floes encumber its entrance, blocking the fjord and keeping the calf ice inside.

    Ikertivaq

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.