cumbersome
adjUK /ˈkʌmbəsəm/ · US /ˈkʌmbɚsəm/
Etymology From Middle English cumbyrsum, cummyrsum; equivalent to cumber (“hindrance”) + -some. Compare encumber and incumbent.
1
Burdensome or hindering, as if a weight or drag; vexatious.
- "You can throw off your cumbersome disguise here," said Lucy, though the words could scarcely be distinguished, from her excessive agitation, Evelyn hastily caught up a cloak and cap laid ready for him, and a few minutes brought them into the sitting-room.1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 54:
2
Not easily managed or handled; awkward or clumsy.
- Cumbersome machines can endanger operators and slow down production.
- The full title of the unified system, the South Eastern & London, Chatham & Dover Railways, was decidedly cumbersome, and for the sake of convenience was shortened to the South Eastern & Chatham Railway.1958 November 23, “The Why and the Wherefore: South Eastern & Chatham Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 809:
3
Hard, difficult, and demanding to handle or get around with.
- A slave’s work was as cumbersome as toiling on the fields, or in the mines.
4
Inert, lumbering, or slow in movement.
- Derived terms
- cumbersomely, cumbersomeness, uncumbersome