What's the difference between burden and encumber?

Burden


Definition:

  • (n.) That which is borne or carried; a load.
  • (n.) That which is borne with labor or difficulty; that which is grievous, wearisome, or oppressive.
  • (n.) The capacity of a vessel, or the weight of cargo that she will carry; as, a ship of a hundred tons burden.
  • (n.) The tops or heads of stream-work which lie over the stream of tin.
  • (n.) The proportion of ore and flux to fuel, in the charge of a blast furnace.
  • (n.) A fixed quantity of certain commodities; as, a burden of gad steel, 120 pounds.
  • (n.) A birth.
  • (v. t.) To encumber with weight (literal or figurative); to lay a heavy load upon; to load.
  • (v. t.) To oppress with anything grievous or trying; to overload; as, to burden a nation with taxes.
  • (v. t.) To impose, as a load or burden; to lay or place as a burden (something heavy or objectionable).
  • (n.) The verse repeated in a song, or the return of the theme at the end of each stanza; the chorus; refrain. Hence: That which is often repeated or which is dwelt upon; the main topic; as, the burden of a prayer.
  • (n.) The drone of a bagpipe.
  • (n.) A club.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who is also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, recently proposed a bill that would ease the financial burden of prescription drugs on elderly Americans by allowing Medicare, the national social health insurance program, to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies to keep prices down.
  • (2) Finally, before the advent of the third-party payment, operations were avoided because of the financial burden.
  • (3) However, civil society groups have raised concerns about the ethics of providing ‘climate loans’ which increase the country’s debt burden.
  • (4) The parasites were highly aggregated within the study community, with most people harbouring low burdens while a few individuals harboured very heavy burdens.
  • (5) Economic burdens for postmarketing research should be shared jointly by the research-oriented and generic drug companies.
  • (6) There is general agreement that suicides are likely to be undercounted, both for structural reasons (the burden-of-proof issue, the requirement that the coroner or medical examiner suspect the possibility of suicide) and for sociocultural reasons.
  • (7) The art Kennard produced formed the basis of his career, as he recounted later: “I studied as a painter, but after the events of 1968 I began to look for a form of expression that could bring art and politics together to a wider audience … I found that photography wasn’t as burdened with similar art historical associations.” The result was his STOP montage series.
  • (8) The analysis indicated a high cost burden for families in all disease categories studied, although a lack of uniformity in data presentation and in the variables studied prevented specific generalizations to be made about the numbers or characteristics of families with high costs.
  • (9) "Public servants did nothing to cause the slump but are being asked to bear an unfair share of the burden.
  • (10) The irony of this type of self-manipulation is that ultimately the child, or adult, finds himself again burdened by impotence, though it is the impotence of guilt rather than that of shame.
  • (11) The aim of the study was to find whether treatment would result in an improvement of cognition, of functioning in daily life, decrease of behavioural disturbances, and decrease in burden experienced by the carers.
  • (12) Lymph proliferative disorders with a high mitotic rate, and large tumor burden, regardless of histologic features, should be treated prophylactically against tumor lysis if regrowth between cycles occurs.
  • (13) These data indicate that, compared with animals at sea level, animals at altitude have an increased body burden of COHb and will attain the COHb level associated with the National Ambient Air Quality Standard for CO more quickly when breathing CO.
  • (14) Macro-epidemiology is concerned with the absolute and relative contributions of particular causes or diseases to the overall burden of ill-health in a population.
  • (15) Communicable diseases represent a considerable burden in terms of suffering and costs.
  • (16) This is indirect evidence suggesting that mercury from dental amalgam fillings may contribute to the body burden of mercury in the brain.
  • (17) The gender-specific kinship relationship of patients and their care providers has not generally been investigated in studies of caregiver burden and well-being.
  • (18) In predicting response to therapy, poor prognostic factors included large tumor burdens, advanced disease stage, and chemotherapy-resistant tumors.
  • (19) Radical postoperative irradiation (A) is burdened by 3 serious complications and a considerably higher amount of complaints.
  • (20) MMC and 5-FU did not show significant activity against large tumor burden, while a relatively good activity was detected in patients with minimal disease.

Encumber


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To impede the motion or action of, as with a burden; to retard with something superfluous; to weigh down; to obstruct or embarrass; as, his movements were encumbered by his mantle; his mind is encumbered with useless learning.
  • (v. t.) To load with debts, or other legal claims; as, to encumber an estate with mortgages.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) While they may always be encumbered by censorship in a way that HBO is not, the success of darker storylines, antiheroes and the occasional snow zombie will not be lost in an entertainment industry desperate to maintain its share of the audience.
  • (2) Genetic analyses of DNA restriction and modification mechanisms have been encumbered by the inability to rigorously select for mutant phenotypes associated with these systems.
  • (3) John Pugh, a former Lib Dem health spokesman, said: "There is no compelling reason why the NHS in England should be encumbered with this level of bean counting … the NHS should be like other more efficient public services run on simple best-value principles.
  • (4) Rather than conditions of respect and regard, lesbians report atmospheres of intimidation and humiliation, which encumber their interactions with health care providers.
  • (5) The drag coefficient was high compared with that of phocid seals examined during gliding or towing experiments, indicating an increased drag encumbered by actively swimming seals.
  • (6) These burdens all add to the cost of trade and therefore encumber economic growth in developing countries.
  • (7) Fibroses occurred frequently as a result, which to date encumber nerve adhesive.
  • (8) Distal osteotomies are encumbered by nonunion problems.
  • (9) This encumbers research on the psychoanalytic process.
  • (10) Often children are not discovered by teachers who are overwhelmed by large classes or encumbered with a complicated curriculum.
  • (11) By contrast, comparison of the time necessary to gain accurate control over individual PTNs from contralateral cortex showed the epileptic monkeys to be significantly encumbered when compared to nonepileptic monkeys.
  • (12) One major reason is perhaps that the Australian Labor leader is chosen by the party's MPs and not by the more cumbersome but wider democratic process that Labour chose for itself nearly 30 years ago, thus encumbering itself with an institutional inertia factor that hugely benefits incumbents.
  • (13) Different Therapy of Bromisoval Poisoning and Primary Detoxication by Gastrotomy or Duodenotomy: Bromisoval poisoning is encumbered with a high complication rate and mortality.
  • (14) Like many US enterprises seeking to push drone technology, Amazon has been encumbered by regulations introduced by the FAA in an attempt to prevent unpiloted drone aircraft from endangering passenger planes and denting America’s unparalleled global reputation for air safety.
  • (15) Its application in a kinematic gait-analysis system is demonstrated, employing minimally encumbering electrogoniometry and foot-contact switches.
  • (16) The measurement of microdosimetric distributions for the purpose of estimating the quality factor, Q, may be encumbered in pulsed radiation fields--as produced, for instance, by accelerators with low duty cycle--because of a signal pile-up.
  • (17) Occupations tend to be more of a factor in white males, where occupational choice is least encumbered, than in black males or in females.
  • (18) The polar head group of DOPA, being more negatively charged and sterically less encumbered than diester phosphate ligands, most probably was responsible for this adherence of the lipid bilayers to the crystal surfaces.
  • (19) It is suggested that in sick premature infants, when the head is encumbered by various types of apparatus, this technique might prove more feasible than HC measurement.
  • (20) Traditional manual reporting systems are encumbered by the necessity of transcription of test information onto hard copy reports and then the subsequent distribution of such reports into the hands of the user.