An encumbrance is the thing that encumbers you — the load, the extra bag, the rule, the claim that makes it difficult to do something or for something to happen. In ordinary (rather formal) English it means a burden that slows you down. In law it is a named fact: a right or claim on land or a house, such as a bank loan on the property, that makes it less free to sell. Taiwan students who read contracts will meet the legal sense; students who read novels will meet the “burden” sense. They look like one word because they are one idea: something stuck to you or to a thing, making life less simple. Though actually, in a contract, encumbrance is not a feeling; it is a legal fact on paper.