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Lumber vs Limber - What's the difference?

lumber | limber |

As nouns the difference between lumber and limber

is that lumber is wood intended as a building material while limber is a two-wheeled, horse-drawn vehicle used to pull an artillery piece into battle.

As verbs the difference between lumber and limber

is that lumber is to move clumsily while limber is to cause to become limber; to make flexible or pliant.

As an adjective limber is

flexible, pliant, bendable.

lumber

English

(wikipedia lumber)

Noun

(-)
  • (uncountable) Wood intended as a building material.
  • * 1782, H. de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer
  • Here they live by fishing on the most plentiful coasts in the world; there they fell trees, by the sides of large rivers, for masts and lumber ;
  • Useless things that are stored away
  • * 1711, Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism
  • The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, / With loads of learned lumber in his head,
  • A pawnbroker's shop, or room for storing articles put in pawn; hence, a pledge, or pawn.
  • * Lady Murray
  • They put all the little plate they had in the lumber , which is pawning it, till the ships came.

    Synonyms

    * timber * wood

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • to move clumsily
  • * 1816, Sir Walter Scott, The Antiquary
  • ...he was only apprized of the arrival of the Monkbarns division by the gee-hupping of the postilion, as the post-chaise lumbered up behind him.
  • to load down with things, to fill, to encumber
  • * 1822, Sir Walter Scott, Peveril of the Peak
  • The mean utensils, pewter measures, empty cans and casks, with which this room was lumbered , proclaimed it that of the host, who slept surrounded by his professional implements of hospitality and stock-in-trade.
  • To heap together in disorder.
  • * Rymer
  • stuff lumbered together
  • To fill or encumber with lumber.
  • to lumber up a room

    limber

    English

    Etymology 1

    (en)

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Flexible, pliant, bendable.
  • He's so limber that he can kiss his knee without bending it.
  • * Turberville
  • The bargeman that doth row with long and limber oar.
    Derived terms
    * limber up

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To cause to become limber; to make flexible or pliant.
  • * (Richardson)
  • Etymology 2

    For the obsolete (limmer), from (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) A two-wheeled, horse-drawn vehicle used to pull an artillery piece into battle.
  • (in the plural) The shafts or thills of a wagon or carriage.
  • (military) The detachable fore part of a gun carriage, consisting of two wheels, an axle, and a shaft to which the horses are attached. On top is an ammunition box upon which the cannoneers sit.
  • *1985 , (Peter Carey), Illywhacker , Faber and Faber 2003, p. 29:
  • *:we covered the rutted, rattling, dusty pot-holed roads of coastal Victoria, six big Walers in front, the cannon at the rear, and that unsprung cart they called a ‘limber ’ in the middle.
  • (nautical, in the plural) Gutters or conduits on each side of the keelson to allow water to pass to the pump well.
  • Usage notes
    * Sometimes the plural limbers was used to refer to a single such vehicle.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (obsolete) To prepare an artillery piece for transportation (i.e., to attach it to its limber.)
  • Antonyms
    * unlimber

    References

    * Oxford English Dictionary , 2nd ed., 1989. * Notes: