cumbersomely
- adverb
- /ˈkʌmbərsəmli/
- The old computer operates cumbersomely, taking forever to complete simple tasks.
Examples
-
Perhaps this would have been clearer had I called Pieris, more cumbersomely, an "unremark-upon-able hybrid."
Academic text (2011) -
He moves cumbersomely, has emphysema, and a bit of a humpback, and the slack look of a plump man who lost weight because his doctor told him to.
Fiction book (1990) -
Cumbersomely keeping his grip on the leaden, staring child, Nelson steps toward the bed and sets a folded copy of the News-Press on the chrome-edged table already holding the water glass, the telephone, and the little brown bottle of nitroglycerin.
Fiction book (1990) -
Its sole purpose was to dig itself into the earth, slowly, cumbersomely, relentlessly, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, processing coal as it went, eating, gnawing, wheezing, and clanking away with a deafening sound.
Fiction book (1998) -
He struggled cumbersomely to carry the heavy boxes up the narrow stairs.
-
She organized the event cumbersomely, forgetting essential steps along the way.
Synonyms
3
4.8
In a way that wastes time or money
In a slow, awkward way because something is heavy or hard to move
In a way that makes something hard to do or bear
In a way that causes a lot of extra work or trouble
In a heavy, clumsy way that makes movement feel awkward
Antonyms
How Cumbersome
Surface Forms
Morphology
cumbersomely = cumbersome (transparent) = cumber + some + ly
Standard adverbial formation from the adjective 'cumbersome' yields 'in a cumbersome manner'; the relation is directly predictable.
Etymology
Cumbersomely comes from the old word cumber, which meant 'to burden' or 'get in the way', and the part -some suggests 'full of'. So, to do something cumbersomely is to do it in a heavy, awkward way that slows you down.