Make Your Point: ENCUMBER

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pronounce ENCUMBER:

en COME bur

connect this word to others:

To be encumbered by things is to be burdened by them, held back by them, weighed down by them, tr____ed by them ("trapped, as if caught in a fishing net").

Like Sarah here in the movie Labyrinth, as the Junk Lady piles Sarah's old childhood toys onto her back, encumbering her with objects while Sarah struggles to remember what's actually important: saving her baby brother.

(Source)

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definition:

Let's start with "cumber," an old word we don't often use these days. To cumber people or their movements is to block them, burden them, or overwhelm them. Check out this example from a Robert Browning poem: "Body shall cumber Soul-flight no more."

A slightly newer version of "cumber" is "encumber," and that's the form we often use today. Its meaning is the same: to encumber someone is to hold them back or restrain them by burdening them.

These words might trace back to the Latin combrus, "an obstacle," and possibly further back to cumulus, "a heap." So when you can't make progress because of obstacles in the way, or heaps of things you have to do or carry, you're encumbered.

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, the transitive kind: "They struggled toward their gate, encumbered by suitcases and baby gear."

Other forms:

The other verb forms of "encumber" are "encumbered" and "encumbering."

There's a countable noun, "encumbrance," for something that encumbers you: "When her date gives her a flower, Elaine is annoyed by the encumbrance, wondering how long she's expected to hold it."

And there's an adjective, "cumbersome," for things that encumber you. "A single flower isn't exactly cumbersome until you're expected to hold it for hours."

You can disencumber yourself of things, and if you do, you're then disencumbered, or unencumbered: freed from burdens, from worries or responsibilities, or from unneeded complications, and able to progress freely and easily. "She drops her backpack and, unencumbered, runs to the trampoline."

how to use it:

When you want to say that you're struggling to move forward because things are standing in your way, or because things are weighing you down, or both, say that you're encumbered by those things. "My kid just started middle school, and already she's encumbered by homework and a heavy backpack."

Or, say that things are encumbering you, or encumbering your progress. "Her heavy backpack encumbers her as she trudges off to the bus."

examples:

"Once you set yourself the task of identifying needless words, it's surprising how many you can find. A shocking number of phrases that drop easily from the fingers are bloated with words that encumber the reader without conveying any content."
— Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style, 2014

"We possess a basic instinct to trust. So overwhelming is this instinct that it obscures our ability to see even the most baldfaced forms of trickery... Worse still, we humans are encumbered with all sorts of biases — toward optimism, toward our own superiority — that help this cheat along."
— Jennifer Senior, New York Times, 14 January 2016

has this page helped you understand "encumber"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "encumber" without saying "burden" or "weigh down."

try it out:

Fill in the blanks: "(Someone or something) advanced slowly, encumbered by (something)."

Example 1: "My thoughts advanced slowly, encumbered by the port wine."

Example 2: "They advanced slowly, for they had to pick their way through a pathless country, encumbered by fallen trees and tumbled rocks."
— J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring, 1954

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "Recapitate the Headlines."

I'll give you some real but decapitated headlines, along with a selection of heads, and you try to reassemble them as they were originally published. (Or, feel free to play in "wrong answers only" mode, assembling the headlines in whatever way you find funniest.) You can check out some examples here.

Try these today:

__________ bringing printers, desktops into stores for remote work
__________ getting stolen, taken for a joy ride, repaired and returned
__________ throwing sandwich at a police officer

20 officers came to arrest man charged with
Mystery deepens as California man's plane keeps
Starbucks asks customers to stop

To see the correct versions, scroll all the way down.

review this word:

1. The precise opposite of ENCUMBER is DISENCUMBER. But a pretty close opposite of ENCUMBER could be

A. PLANT.
B. SET FREE.
C. TAKE OUT.

2. For some people, "daily life is encumbered, in a hundred arbitrary ways," because "the world is _____," Monica Hesse observed.

A. made in their image
B. not set up for them
C. biased in their favor

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.

From my blog:
On vocabulary...
  36 ways to study words.
  Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
  How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
On writing...
How to improve any sentence.
How to motivate our kids to write.
How to stop procrastinating and start writing.
How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count.

From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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