This week’s theme
Words to describe people

This week’s words
cadgy
querimonious
bombaster
canescent
cumberground

This week’s comments
AWADmail 1245

Next week’s theme
Whose what?


Wordsmith Games

🧩	Jigsaw Riddle Misheard Music
🌍	Langitude Trace manila home

A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(KUHM-buhr-graund)

MEANING:

noun: A useless person.

ETYMOLOGY:

From cumber (to hinder or encumber), from Anglo-French acumbrer (encumbrer) + ground. Earliest documented use: 1657.

NOTES:

A cumberground is someone who encumbers the ground while adding nothing of value. The image echoes Luke 13:7, in the parable of the barren fig tree: “Why cumbereth it the ground?” A synonym is cumberworld.

USAGE:

“Tuli, sweetheart, can you fetch me more cake? And put it on this side, far away from my friend the cumberground here.”
Evelyn Puerto; Flight of the Spark; Open Water Books; 2019.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: