lumber Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the wood of trees cut and prepared for use as building material
    timber.
  2. noun an implement used in baseball by the batter
    baseball bat.
  3. verb move heavily or clumsily
    pound.
    • The heavy man lumbered across the room
  4. verb cut lumber, as in woods and forests
    log.

WordNet

Lum"ber noun
Etymology
Prob. fr. Lombard, the Lombards being the money lenders and pawnbrokers of the Middle Ages. A lumber room was, according to Trench, originally a Lombard room, or room where the Lombard pawnbroker stored his pledges. See Lombard.
Definitions
  1. A pawnbroker's shop, or room for storing articles put in pawn; hence, a pledge, or pawn. Obs.
    They put all the little plate they had in the lumber, which is pawning it, till the ships came. Lady Murray.
  2. Old or refuse household stuff; things cumbrous, or bulky and useless, or of small value.
  3. Timber sawed or split into the form of beams, joists, boards, planks, staves, hoops, etc.; esp., that which is smaller than heavy timber. U.S.
Lum"ber transitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Lumbered ; present participle & verbal noun Lumbering
Definitions
  1. To heap together in disorder. " Stuff lumbered together." Rymer.
  2. To fill or encumber with lumber; as, to lumber up a room.
Lum"ber intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. To move heavily, as if burdened.
  2. Cf. dial. Sw. lomra to resound. To make a sound as if moving heavily or clumsily; to rumble. Cowper.
  3. To cut logs in the forest, or prepare timber for market. U.S.

Webster 1913