cumber

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

• UK: /ˈkʌmbə/
  Play
• Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  Play
• rhymes with -ʌmbə(ɹ)
  Play
• CMU ARPABET: K AH1 M B ER0 Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.
  Play

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.

From Middle English combren, aphetic form of acombren or encombren, borrowed from Old French encombrer, ultimately either from Latin cumulus or Proto-Celtic *kombereti (“to bring together”), from *kom- + *bereti (“to bear”). Cognate with German kümmern (“to take care of”).

9 source translations are retained for this English entry.

• Bulgarian: затруднявам (zatrudnjavam) — to slow down, to hinder, to burden
• Bulgarian: обременявам (obremenjavam) — to slow down, to hinder, to burden
• Czech: blokovat — to slow down, to hinder, to burden
• Czech: zablokovat — to slow down, to hinder, to burden
• Czech: zatarasit — to slow down, to hinder, to burden
• Czech: ztěžovat — to slow down, to hinder, to burden
• Czech: bránit — to slow down, to hinder, to burden
• Czech: brzdit — to slow down, to hinder, to burden
• French: encombrer — to slow down, to hinder, to burden