An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Kummer

by Friedrich Kluge

Kummer, masculine, ‘grief, sorrow, distress,’ from Middle High German kumber, masculine, ‘rubbish, refuse (thus still dialectic), encumbering, oppression, distress, grief’; Modern High German mm, from Middle High German mb, as in Zimmer, Lamm, and Kamm. The word is wanting in all the Old Teutonic dialects; compare Modern Dutch kommer, masculine, ‘grief, affliction; hare's dung’; Middle English combren, ‘to encumber, molest,’ English to cumber. The cognates are very similar in sound to a Romance class — French décombres, ‘rubbish,’ Portuguese comoro, combro, ‘mound of earth, hillock,’ Italian ingombro, ‘hindrance,’ French encombrer, ‘to obstruct (with rubbish), block up’; Middle Latin combrus, ‘mound of earth, barrier of felled trees, obstructing pile.’ The Teutonic cognates seem to have passed into Romance; for, besides the more recent form with r, we find in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian a variant with l, Old Icelandic kumbl, ‘tumulus, barrow.’