Lost Word Of The Day (70)

In moments of exasperation I sometimes think that a person or a thing only exists to take up valuable space in the world. I might even call the object of my ire a cumberworld, a term which from the 16th century was used to describe a worthless person or thing, one who cumbers the world.

The root of the term is the verb to cumber, which originally meant to destroy completely, but also conveyed the sense of hindering or burdening. It is the same root as has given rise to cumbersome. Michael Drayton in Idea. The Shepheard’s Garland (1593) used it thus; “a cumber-world, yet in the world am left, a fruitles plot, with brambles ouergrowne”.

Sadly, a word used to describe a waste of space could not find room in the English language and lapsed into obscurity.