cumberworld

See also: cumber-world

English

Alternative forms

• cumber-world

Etymology

From Middle English combre-world, combreworldes pl, from the phrase *combren the world; equivalent to cumber +‎ world.

Noun

cumberworld (plural cumberworlds)

1. (derogatory, obsolete) Someone who, or something which, is an encumbrance on the world; a useless person or thing.

   Synonym: cumberground

   • 1593, Michael Drayton, “The Second Eglog”, in Idea the Shepheards Garland, […], London: […] [T. Orwin] for Thomas Woodcocke, […], →OCLC; republished as J[ohn] P[ayne] C[ollier], editor, Idea the Shepheards Garland, [London: Privately printed], 1870, →OCLC, page 6:

     A cumber-world, yet in the world am left, / A fruitles plot, with brambles ouergrowne, / Miſliued man of my vvorlds ioy bereft, / Hart-breaking cares the ofspring of my mone.

   • 1894, James Hamilton Wylie, History of England under Henry the Fourth, volume 2, pages 22–23:

     His pouch was now all void and empty, his future years were like to be sour, thoughty, and woe-begone, and himself a cumberworld, unsicker of his scarce and slender livelihood in lickpenny London, forced to beg, steal, or starve, and gaping after honest death.