Encumber
[ɪn'kʌmbə;en-] or [ɪn'kʌmbɚ]
Definition
(v. t.) To impede the motion or action of, as with a burden; to retard with something superfluous; to weigh down; to obstruct or embarrass; as, his movements were encumbered by his mantle; his mind is encumbered with useless learning.
(v. t.) To load with debts, or other legal claims; as, to encumber an estate with mortgages.
Checked by Lionel
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. [1]. Load, clog, oppress, impede, hinder, obstruct, overload.[2]. Embarrass, perplex, entangle, involve, complicate.
Edited by Jessica
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Oppress, obstruct, clog, impede
ANT:Disencumber, free, disburden
Inputed by Gerard
Definition
v.t. to impede the motion of: to hamper: to embarrass: to burden: to load with debts.—ns. Encum′berment the act of encumbering: the state of being encumbered; Encum′brance that which encumbers or hinders: a legal claim on an estate: one dependent on another—e.g. 'a widow without encumbrances'=a widow without children; Encum′brancer.
Edited by Constantine
Examples
- I will encumber you no more. Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
- The latter was encumbered with barges of coal in tow, and consequently could make but little speed against the rapid current of the Mississippi. Ulysses S. Grant. Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant.
- Brian de Bois-Guilbert rolled on the field, encumbered with the stirrup, from which he was unable to draw his foot. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- But he was unluckily endowed with a good name and a large though encumbered estate, both of which went rather to injure than to advance him. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- Every society gets encumbered with what is trivial, with dead wood from the past, and with what is positively perverse. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- Most of the early telegraphic inventors encumbered their inventions with the same obstacle, as they seemed to consider it necessary to have a separate circuit for each letter of the alphabet. Frederick C. Bakewell. Great Facts.
- So encumbered, the Assembly set about its constructive task. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- Their branches were encumbered with snow, and it silently dropped off in wet heaps while I stood at the window. Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
Checker: Rene