Burdening, hindering, or weighing down with obstacles or encumbrances.
From em- (making intensive) plus cumber (meaning 'to burden or hamper'), from Old French combrer. The -ing form shows the present participle of this archaic verb that meant to burden or impede.
This word reveals that medieval English speakers used 'cumber' to mean burden the way we might say 'baggage,' and adding the em- prefix intensified it into 'really loading someone down with problems.'
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