Crossword Genius

Embarrass new copper with award hero essentially receives (8)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

encumber

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'embarrass' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'new copper with award hero essentially receives' is the wordplay.
'new' becomes 'n' (common abbreviation eg NT for New Testament).
'copper' becomes 'Cu' (chemical symbol).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'award hero essentially' becomes 'ember' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'receives' is an insertion indicator (inserted letters are received).
'n'+'cu'='ncu'
'ncu' inserted into 'ember' is 'ENCUMBER'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for encumber that I've seen before include "Burden with a load, of debt perhaps" , "Burden with, oppress (8)" , "Impede, burden" , "Constrain" , "Be a burden to, place load on" .)

I've seen this clue in The Telegraph.
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