late 14c., of things, "obstructing movement or vision;" c. 1400, "cumbersome, troublesome, clumsy, unwieldy, difficult to use," also of persons, "causing trouble," from cumber + -ous.
Entries linking to cumbrous
cumber v.
c. 1300, cumbren, combren, "to overthrow, destroy, probably a shortening of acombren "obstructing progress," from Old French encombrer, from combre "obstruction, barrier," from Vulgar Latin *comboros "that which is carried together," which is perhaps from a Gaulish word. The likely roots are PIE *kom (see com-) and *bher- (1) "to carry," also "to bear children."
Weakened sense of "to hamper in movement, to obstruct or weigh down" is from c. 1300. Related: Cumbered; cumbering. Cumber-world (late 14c.) was an old word for any thing or person that encumbers the world without being useful; cumber-ground (1650s) was "useless or unprofitable thing or person."
-ous
word-forming element making adjectives from nouns, meaning "having, full of, having to do with, doing, inclined to," from Old French -ous, -eux, from Latin -osus (compare -ose (1)). In chemistry, "having a lower valence than forms expressed in -ic."