Noun : Poverty was a lifelong encumbrance.    From Dictionary.com. 

If she have children, the estate is considered to belong to them, while she is but an "incumbrance" upon it.    From Wordnik.com.  [History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I] Reference

His life is then considered an incumbrance to the camp.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself] Reference

Tell them to bring her back, even with that beastly incumbrance.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Diamond Coterie] Reference

They are an expense to the country, and an incumbrance to the army.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Citizen-Soldier or, Memoirs of a Volunteer] Reference

Their debts are now paid, and their farms free from all incumbrance.    From Wordnik.com.  [Select Temperance Tracts] Reference

Of course a wife is but a temporary incumbrance to a man of Vidocq's dexterity.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 12, No. 347, December 20, 1828] Reference

The poltroon, like the scabbard, is an incumbrance when once the sword is drawn.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858] Reference

I got the idea that he looked upon me as an incumbrance, and declared I would go to sea.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 79, May, 1864] Reference

If police officials, become a useless incumbrance, would be definitely discarded by society?.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Master of the World] Reference

The landlord found his stuffing somewhat warm, and had laid aside half his fleshy incumbrance.    From Wordnik.com.  [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843] Reference

Why take care of the old furniture, that will be worse than an incumbrance in the new premises?.    From Wordnik.com.  [Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844] Reference

He'd like it today, and like it without the incumbrance of having it linked to other legislation.    From Wordnik.com.  [Mccurry Press Briefing] Reference

Is it possible that with Union or disunion before us we can hesitate as to taking on this incumbrance?.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Continental Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 2, February, 1862 Devoted To Literature And National Policy] Reference

Throwing off mortal incumbrance, -- never, indeed, an overweight to him, -- he revelled in his clairvoyance.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 78, April, 1864] Reference

His clothes which, in working, he had laid aside; or which in fleeing he should throw off as an incumbrance.    From Wordnik.com.  [Barnes New Testament Notes] Reference

Head-stays were slackened, wedges knocked off the masts, and every incumbrance cast from the decks into the sea.    From Wordnik.com.  [Captain Canot or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver] Reference

These things now had passed away, and the first fee-simple of the Hockin family became a mere load and incumbrance.    From Wordnik.com.  [Erema] Reference

Or he looked upon his father as a helpless, blind old man who was not, and could not be anything but an incumbrance.    From Wordnik.com.  [The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 09 Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig] Reference

So we naturally build cheaply and slightly, that the house be not an incumbrance rather than a furtherance to our life.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 03, January, 1858] Reference

"Oh, Mr. Barclay how thankfully would I trust my child in such keeping, but would your means support the incumbrance of a wife.".    From Wordnik.com.  [A Book for the Young] Reference

Swords were not carried during this war by officers, as in cases where the rifle was substituted, they only proved an incumbrance.    From Wordnik.com.  [With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) Journal of Active Service] Reference

The idea that they should now be freed from the irksome incumbrance of each other's company, however, afforded them some consolation.    From Wordnik.com.  [Domestic Pleasures, or, the Happy Fire-side] Reference

At five o'clock the men of the corps were ordered to unsling knapsacks and divest themselves of every incumbrance preparatory to a charge.    From Wordnik.com.  [Three Years in the Sixth Corps A Concise Narrative of Events in the Army of the Potomac, from 1861 to the Close of the Rebellion, April, 1865] Reference

Instead of being a waste and an incumbrance, therefore, it is a vast fountain of fruitfulness, and the nurse and mother of all the living.    From Wordnik.com.  [Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader] Reference

'Rhoecus,' and other favorites, until we come to 'L'Envoi,' where our author once more throws his arms aloft, free from the incumbrance of rhyme.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 Volume 23, Number 2] Reference

Their hollowness prevents incumbrance from weight, while their power of resistance is increased by having their traverse sections rounded in form.    From Wordnik.com.  [Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners A Complete Sexual Science and a Guide to Purity and Physical Manhood, Advice To Maiden, Wife, And Mother, Love, Courtship, And Marriage] Reference

The children were also fond of this scene; and one day, finding Saï's presence an incumbrance, they united their efforts and pulled him down by the tail.    From Wordnik.com.  [The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852] Reference

On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the soil, and an inheritance of land being a sacred possession, to hold it free of incumbrance was with every.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4] Reference

Possibly the mare wondered also, for, coming down once more on all four feet to find the hated incumbrance still astride her back, she reared again, immediately.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Vision of Desire] Reference

If (sorry, when) Pakistan falls, it will allow the West (and India) a freer hand in tackling extreme Islamists without the incumbrance of a useless and venal 'ally'.    From Wordnik.com.  [On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...] Reference

He did not intend to be an incumbrance on any one, and became offended in his turn at the mute reproach which he imagined he could read in his cousin's troubled countenance.    From Wordnik.com.  [The French Immortals Series — Complete] Reference

Mr. Williamson (of North Carolina) said he was principled against slavery; and that he thought slaves an incumbrance to society, instead of increasing its ability to pay taxes.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus] Reference

Grasping our weapons, which were no longer to be regarded as a useless incumbrance, we once more proceeded up the brook, and soon reached the piece of low ground before mentioned.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Island Home] Reference