How to Use encumbrance in a Sentence

encumbrance

noun
  • Unlike them, Daisy is free of encumbrances like the need to sleep.
    — Ali Watkins, New York Times, 25 Nov. 2024
  • Paying down debt remains the best hedge against financial encumbrance.
    — Etta Money, Forbes, 12 July 2022
  • Don't like encumbrance rules or somatic requirements to cast spells?
    — Jason Bennett, Arkansas Online, 14 June 2021
  • Both a falcon feather and a hammer fall at the same speed, but without the encumbrance of a massive vacuum chamber.
    — Carl Engelking, Discover Magazine, 6 Nov. 2014
  • The preventive encumbrance can be lifted in seconds — but only by the rightful owner.
    — Lew Sichelman, Miami Herald, 7 May 2026
  • But, eventually, families and jobs and the various other encumbrances of adult life conspire to pull you away.
    — Andrew Keh Bryan Meltz, New York Times, 24 July 2023
  • However, the total quality of our freedom, the ability to move without encumbrance or a hindrance is a far piece off still.
    — Candace McDuffie, The Christian Science Monitor, 1 Dec. 2021
  • Late August through the end of September is the best time to make major changes that free you from past encumbrances and give you a leg up in with your career.
    — oregonlive, 28 Mar. 2020
  • Meanwhile, many of the same people were evicted from their houses as landowners used the crisis to clear off these human encumbrances and free their fields for more profitable pasturage.
    — Fintan O'Toole, The New Yorker, 10 Mar. 2025
  • But corporate apathy wasn’t the project’s only encumbrance.
    — Joan Gaylord, Christian Science Monitor, 7 Aug. 2025
  • Perhaps most important, land banks have the power to clear title to its parcels of liens and other encumbrances that would normally inhibit a resale.
    — John Gallagher, Detroit Free Press, 3 Dec. 2019
  • Freed from the encumbrances of physical infrastructure, fitness can happen anywhere, in any form, anytime.
    — Michael Owen, The Atlantic, 29 May 2020
  • Google has been an advocate for open video To be fair to Google, the search giant has often been an advocate of keeping video standards free of patent encumbrances.
    — Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica, 10 June 2018
  • To critics of Web3, blockchains are at best an unnecessary encumbrance on a startup like Flowcarbon.
    — Christopher Mims, WSJ, 4 June 2022
  • The agreement temporarily helps Sears with its goal to get its products into the hands of consumers without the encumbrance of expensive real estate holdings.
    — Deb Gabor, Fortune, 26 July 2017
  • The house, together with all its conveyances, encumbrances, assignments, contracts, mortgages, liens, other interests, termites and skunks.
    — Virginia Hammerle, Dallas News, 26 Mar. 2023
  • In California, a clean title indicates a property with no liens, encumbrances or claims, ensuring the seller has clear and legal rights to sell without issue.
    — Pat Kapowich, The Mercury News, 23 Mar. 2024
  • Females are accused of Satanic encumbrance, hunted by law enforcement, tormented by reactionary bros, even lobotomized.
    — Darren Franich, EW.com, 8 Apr. 2021
  • For a quarter-century, your humble Observer's gaze has peered through ice, rain, steam, sweat and most other encumbrances, but even he was staggered by the downpours challenging this year's party.
    — The Masked Observer, AL.com, 16 Feb. 2018
  • Since the Upper Sioux Agency land no longer provides those opportunities, the encumbrance must be placed on other public land of equal or greater market value.
    — Mary Divine, Twin Cities, 6 Aug. 2025
  • No longer, Kennedy Center officials say, will any of the actors carry their scripts onstage, a practice that was a concession to short rehearsal periods but that over time has proved an encumbrance.
    — Peter Marks, Washington Post, 2 Aug. 2022
  • What the land bank offers to buyers is a clean title free of liens and other encumbrances, according to Jessica Caffrey, executive director.
    — Mike Nolan, Chicago Tribune, 10 July 2025
  • Musk points out that with shipping-container farms, which lock out all the traditional encumbrances of farming—drought, locusts, 24-hour cycles of day and night—optimization of food is possible.
    — Kevin Dupzyk, Popular Mechanics, 24 Oct. 2018
  • The pleasure of seeing them together onscreen, and the intermittent spark of comedic energy that passes between them, doesn’t outweigh the overwhelming encumbrances of the script and, above all, of the direction.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 11 May 2017
  • Martin Weston, the national junior coach manager for British tennis, isn’t surprised by the shot’s dwindling presence, partly due to the shot’s encumbrance.
    — Richard Mills, SI.com, 16 Feb. 2016
  • The title reflects ongoing ownership, which may include various legal claims or encumbrances, while the deed is specific to the act of transferring ownership from one party to another.
    — True Tamplin, Forbes, 20 Oct. 2024
  • Perhaps the Prius’ greatest accomplishment — making hybrid technology mainstream — is now its greatest encumbrance.
    — Bloomberg, Twin Cities, 3 June 2019
  • The narrative spun by Johnson and his allies was that the country’s natural exuberance had been stifled for half a century by bureaucrats in Brussels and that freed from these encumbrances, the union would flourish.
    — Fintan O’Toole, Foreign Affairs, 5 July 2024
  • An encumbrance, or restriction, is created when the Land and Water Conservation Fund is used to purchase or improve land for public outdoor recreation, Preus said.
    — Mary Divine, Twin Cities, 6 Aug. 2025
  • There have been suggestions that AI needs Section 230 because large language models train on data and will be better if that data is freely usable with no liabilities or encumbrances.
    — Jaron Lanier, WIRED, 13 Feb. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'encumbrance.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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