LUMBER • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Lumber

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/lˈəmbər/ Listen

noun

Lumber n.

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."

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.)

Lumber kiln, a room in which timber or lumber is dried by artificial heat. (U.S.)

Lumber room, a room in which unused furniture or other lumber is kept. (U.S.)

Lumber wagon, a heavy rough wagon, without springs, used for general farmwork, etc.

dimensional lumber, lumber, usually of pine, which is sold as beams or planks having a specified nominal cross-section, usually in inches, such a two-by-four, two-by-six, four-by-four, etc.

verb

Lumber v. t. (past & past part. lumbered; pres. part. lumbering)

1.

To heap together in disorder. " Stuff lumbered together."

2.

To fill or encumber with lumber; as, to lumber up a room.

Lumber v. i.

1.

To move heavily, as if burdened.

2.

To make a sound as if moving heavily or clumsily; to rumble.

3.

To cut logs in the forest, or prepare timber for market. (U.S.)

See images of 'Lumber'

Etymology of 'Lumber'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Lumber" Quotes from Famous Books

... winter I heard of one that took up his abode in the basement of a house that stood on the side of a hill in the edge of the country. It was in a sort of lumber-room where all sorts of odds and ends had accumulated. On some shelves was a box of miscellaneous articles, such as lids to tin cans, bed castors, old toothbrushes, bits of broken crockery, pieces of wire, chips ...

— Under the Maples • John Burroughs

... Religion? said he, how can they respect it, when they see you, 'their betters,' fattening on church lands, neglecting sacraments, defying excommunications, trading in benefices, hiring the clergy for your puppets and flatterers, making the ministry, the episcopate itself, a lumber-room wherein to stow away the idiots and spendthrifts of your families, the confidants of your mistresses, the cast-off pedagogues ...

— The Saint's Tragedy • Charles Kingsley

... mine—namely, a gunboat of the first class—could be floated off the shore, in case of their stranding, by water-casks being lashed round them. So orders were given that all vessels of that class were to lumber their decks with water-casks. I did so, according to orders; but, not having the least confidence in the manner in which the commander-in-chief proposed to employ them, I utilised them, as will be seen presently, for an ...

— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha

... clothing. "The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions" even, might dare to protest against that wolf. I have heard of boards, and of American boards, but it chances that I never heard of this particular lumber till lately. And yet I hear of Northern men, and women, and children, by families, buying a "life membership" in such societies as these. A life-membership in the grave! You can get buried ...

— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau

... the rest in the Complete Angler. We have got our books into our new house. I am a drayhorse if I was not asham'd of the indigested dirty lumber as I toppled 'em out of the cart, and blest Becky that came with 'em for her having an unstuff'd brain with such rubbish. We shall get in by Michael's mass. 'Twas with some pain we were evuls'd from Colebrook. You may ...

— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold

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