Etymology: Used early in 14th cent. in sense 1; but not common till 16th, and then at first chiefly Scotch, where it is also spelt cummer . The date, form, and sense, are all consistent with its being either a derivative of cumber v., or a shortened form of encumber n. But sense 2 strikingly coincides with German kummer, Middle High German (from c1200) kumber, Middle Low German kummer, Dutch kommer. Old French had only combre feminine in the sense ‘heap of felled trees, stones, or the like’ (Godefroy), corresponding to medieval Latin combra ‘a mound or mole in a river for the sake of catching fish’ (Du Cange), and akin to Merovingian Latin cumbrus , plural cumbri , combri ‘barriers of felled trees’ (Du Cange), whence medieval Latin incumbrāre , French encombrer , to encumber v. Compare also Portuguese combro ‘a heap of earth’. In the Meroving. Latin cumbrus, Diez (s.v. Colmo saw a barbaric form, through *cumblus, of Latin cumulus heap: so also Littré, Scheler, Brachet, s.v. Encombre. But the question of the actual origin of cumbrus, and its relation to the German kummer and its family, is a difficult one, which has been much investigated and discussed: see Grimm, Kluge, Franck, Doornkaat-Koolmann.

Etymology: Cumber verb is known from c1300. Its early derivatives cumberment , cumbrance , cumbrous (14th cent. at least) all suppose for it a French derivation: compare the parallel series under encumber v., and its weakened form accumber v., also Old French encombrer, -ment, encombrance, encombros, -eus. Except in one doubtful instance, Godefroy cites Old French combrer only in the sense of covrer ‘to lay hold of, seize, take’, which does not account for the Middle English uses of cumber. He has no examples of combrance, combrement, and only one (16th cent.) example of combreux. Hence it would be more satisfactory to regard the English words as aphetic forms of the encumber, acumber types, but for their appearing earlier than these. The etymological history being unsettled, the order of the senses, and the precise meaning in many cases, is doubtful.