encumber

“Traditionally, these big changes are something that you grant to the next mayor because you don’t want to necessarily encumber them,” Matute said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2026

A shark cannot sink the submarine alone, but it can certainly encumber it.

From Slate ● Nov. 20, 2023

"It was a time to really get to know one another with no outside influences to encumber you," Duffy told the outlet.

From Fox News ● Jul. 3, 2021

It would be even more difficult in the District, which pays from current appropriations and cannot encumber future appropriations under current legislation.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 16, 2016

A shocking number of phrases that drop easily from the fingers are bloated with words that encumber the reader without conveying any content.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

“That is expensive, not sustainable and encumbers future generations with further long-term liabilities,” Karsten Smid, an energy expert with the group’s German branch, said in a statement.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 26, 2024

By now we all know the basic data about college student loan debt—that it totals more than $1.7 trillion, encumbers around 40 million people at present, and cannot be absolved in bankruptcy.

From Salon ● Aug. 14, 2021

North Korea’s trade with China plunged more than 80% last year, Chinese customs data has shown, as the isolated country’s strict coronavirus lockdown encumbers an economy already burdened by international sanctions.

From The Guardian ● Jan. 19, 2021

He has said that he wears one when he’s concerned about being respectful, but that a jacket encumbers his political pugilism.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 10, 2020

It’s the way civilized man now encumbers his territory, not with great walls or stretches of wire but with a single well-placed device, a neat bundling with the workings of a mind.

From "Native Speaker" by Chang-rae Lee

He gets straight into it on his new record, on an opening track encumbered with the blindingly literal title, "Opening".

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2025

The encumbered amount will probably, but not necessarily, be spent eventually.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 21, 2024

Other people were encumbered by concerns at the time, possibly about, you know, is that libelous?

From Salon ● Nov. 4, 2024

Tuition rates are high, students leave encumbered with more debt and the state gives less to higher education than others.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 10, 2023

And she was too tired and too encumbered to move much anyway.

From "Typical American" by Gish Jen

Those documents alleged that Lisa Marie Presley, Keough’s mother, had borrowed $3.8 million from the company and “gave a deed of trust encumbering Graceland as security.”

From Los Angeles Times ● May 22, 2024

Forbes reported on how the influx of returns has encumbering retailers since early 2021.

From Washington Times ● Jun. 28, 2022

This can be an offer to hold any encumbering items — though not, presumably, the cane.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 21, 2021

Personally, I blame the baggy white t-shirt Mickelson was wearing underneath his polo, the added weight encumbering his movement.

From Golf Digest ● Mar. 25, 2020

Every poet was an original, more suo, mindless of the encumbering alloy, for they knew that the vein they had opened was their own, and confided too frequently in its abundance to find its richness.

From Amenities of Literature Consisting of Sketches and Characters of English Literature by Isaac Disraeli