Cumbersome vs Ponderous - What's the difference?
cumbersome | ponderous |
Burdensome or hindering, as a weight or drag; vexatious; cumbrous.
Not easily managed or handled; awkward.
Hard, difficult, demanding to handle or get around with.
Heavy, massive, weighty.
* 1879 , , Archibald Malmaison , ch. 5:
* Edgar B. P. Darlington, The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings , ch. 4:
(figuratively, by extension) Serious, onerous, oppressive.
* 1781 , , Lives of the Poets , "Dryden":
* 1845 , , Pictures From Italy , ch. 11:
* 1915 , , The Voyage Out , ch. 19:
Clumsy, unwieldy, or slow, especially due to weight.
* 1915 , , Little Miss Grouch , ch. 10:
* 1919 , , "Kew Gardens":
Dull, boring, tedious; long-winded in expression.
* 1863 , , "Cousin Phillis":
* 1918 , , A Daughter Of The Land , ch. 2:
(rare) Characterized by or associated with pondering.
* , "Sermon Upon John III" in Works of Thomas Manton (2002 edition), ISBN 9781589603462,
* 1804 , The Literary Magazine and American Register , vol. 2, no. 7,
* 1850 , Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country , vol. 41,
(obsolete) Dense.
As adjectives the difference between cumbersome and ponderous
is that cumbersome is burdensome or hindering, as a weight or drag; vexatious; cumbrous while ponderous is heavy, massive, weighty.cumbersome
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Cumbersome machines can endanger operators and slow down production.
- A slaves' work was as cumbersome as toiling on the fields, or in the mines.
Synonyms
* See alsoDerived terms
* cumbersomely * cumbersomenessSynonyms
* cumbrousponderous
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- [H]e saw, at the end of a shallow embrasure, a ponderous door of dark wood, braced with iron.
- The great elephant, when the cage was being placed, would, at a signal from its keeper, place its ponderous head against one side of the cage and push.
- It was Dryden's opinion . . . that the drama required an alternation of comick and tragick scenes; and that it is necessary to mitigate, by alleviations of merriment, the pressure of ponderous events, and the fatigue of toilsome passions.
- In its court-yard—worthy of the Castle of Otranto in its ponderous gloom—is a massive staircase.
- For the time, her own body was the source of all the life in the world, which tried to burst forth here—there—and was repressed now by Mr. Bax, now by Evelyn, now by the imposition of ponderous stupidity.
- Slowly, through an increasing glow that lighted land and water alike, the leviathan of the deep made her ponderous progress to the hill-encircled harbor.
- Following his steps . . . came two elderly women of the lower middle class, one stout and ponderous , the other rosy cheeked and nimble.
- Over supper the minister did unbend a little into one or two ponderous jokes.
- [A]s certainly as any one said anything in her presence that she had occasion to repeat, she changed the wording to six-syllabled mouthfuls, delivered with ponderous circumlocution.
p. 464:
- Ponderous thoughts take hold of the heart; musing maketh the fire to burn, and steady sight hath the greatest influence upon us.
p. 10:
- The acute and ponderous mind of Dr. Johnson was not always right in its decisions.
p. 242:
- They are the pleasantest of all companions, and perhaps the most affluent in correct opinions of men and things generally , although little addicted to ponderous consideration or deep research.