different between comber vs cumber

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English comber, camber, equivalent to comb +? -er.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?k??m?/
• (US) enPR: k??m?r, IPA^(key): /?ko?m?/
• Homophone: coma (in non-rhotic accents)

Noun

comber (plural combers)

1. A person who combs wool, etc.
2. A machine that combs wool, etc.
3. A long, curving wave breaking on the shore.
   • 1929, Robert Dean Frisbee, The Book of Puka-Puka (republished by Eland, 2019; p. 118):

     The mighty combers crashed down with long echoing reverberations like the roar of great cannons, followed by the ominous swish of broken water rushing across the reef in mad clouds of foam and spray.

Synonyms

• (long curving wave): breaker

Derived terms

• beachcomber

Translations

Etymology 2

Wikispecies This etymology is incomplete. You can help Wiktionary by elaborating on the origins of this term.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?k?mb?/
• (US) enPR: käm?b?r, IPA^(key): /?k?mb?/

Noun

comber (plural combers)

1. Serranus cabrilla, the gaper, a fish found in European waters.

Derived terms

• brown comber (Serranus hepatus)
• painted comber (Serranus picta)
• comber wrasse (comb wrasse, Labrus bergylta, syn. Labrus comber)

Translations

Anagrams

• recomb

English

Alternative forms

• cumbre (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English combren, borrowed from the second element of Old French encombrer.Cognate with German kümmern (“to take care of”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?k?mb?/
• Rhymes: -?mb?(?)

Verb

cumber (third-person singular simple present cumbers, present participle cumbering, simple past and past participle cumbered)

1. (transitive, dated) To slow down; to hinder; to burden; to encumber.

   • Why asks he what avails him not in fight, / And would but cumber and retard his flight?

   • The multiplying variety of arguments, especially frivolous ones, […] but cumbers the memory.

   • 1886, Sir Walter Scott, The Fortunes of Nigel. Pub.: Adams & Charles Black, Edinburgh; page 321:

     […] the base villain who murdered this poor defenceless old man, when he had not, by the course of nature, a twelvemonth's life in him, shall not cumber the earth long after him.

Synonyms

• encumber

Derived terms

• cumberground
• cumbersome
• cumberworld
• cumbrous

Related terms

• encumber
• encumbrance

Translations

See also

• Thesaurus:hinder

References

• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “cumber”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• cumbre, recumb