- the trade or business of cutting and preparing lumber.
Origin of lumbering
- timber sawed or split into planks, boards, etc.
- miscellaneous useless articles that are stored away.
- to cut timber and prepare it for market.
- to become useless or to be stored away as useless.
- to convert (a specified amount, area, etc.) into lumber: We lumbered more than a million acres last year.
- to heap together in disorder.
- to fill up or obstruct with miscellaneous useless articles; encumber.
Origin of lumber1
- to move clumsily or heavily, especially from great or ponderous bulk: overloaded wagons lumbering down the dirt road.
- to make a rumbling noise.
Origin of lumber2
Synonyms for lumberSee more synonyms for on Thesaurus.com
Related Words for lumberinghulking, unwieldy, ungainly, heavy, halting, bumbling, bovine, overgrown, splay, blundering, elephantine, gauche, gawky, inept, lumpish, maladroit, ponderous, wooden, klutzy
Examples from the Web for lumbering
Contemporary Examples of lumbering
But his lumbering lurch toward the Ted Cruz tin-foil-hat convention should instead be an object lesson for Republicans to come.Will the GOP Get the Message in Kansas?
Ana Marie Cox
October 24, 2014
For now, Carlisle says the best way to keep rhinos alive is by moving them, one lumbering gray creature at a time.South Africa’s Great Rhino Airlift
August 17, 2014
Today, however, that same, lumbering Julio Cesar kept Brazil in the World Cup.World Cup 2014 Nail-Biter: Host Country Brazil Defeats Chile on Penalty Kicks
June 28, 2014
Pop, pop, pop, Ali—then Cassius Clay—surrounded the lumbering Scandinavian with zinging leather.The Stacks: Harold Conrad Was Many Things, But He Was Never, Ever Dull
March 8, 2014
This was about the time a Texas lumbering company was becoming a major stockholder in Time Inc.‘The Land of the Permanent Wave’ Is Bud Shrake’s Classic Take on ‘60s Texas
February 2, 2014
Historical Examples of lumbering
At the end he nodded, and, with a lumbering movement, altered his position in his chair.The Market-Place
His instinct was to "charge" and he made one lumbering plunge.Two Arrows
William O. Stoddard
Their lumbering craft is the first to touch the side of the Teutonic.The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2)
The heavy, lumbering steps of a policeman at last broke her reverie.
He shouted to the postilion, and the huge, lumbering vehicle was set in motion.
- mainly US and Canadian the business or trade of cutting, transporting, preparing, or selling timber
- awkward in movement
- moving with a rumbling sound
- mainly US and Canadian
- logs; sawn timber
- cut timber, esp when sawn and dressed ready for use in joinery, carpentry, etc
- (as modifier)the lumber trade
- useless household articles that are stored away
- (as modifier)lumber room
- (tr) to pile together in a disorderly manner
- (tr) to fill up or encumber with useless household articles
- mainly US and Canadian to convert (the trees) of (a forest) into marketable timber
- (tr) British informal to burden with something unpleasant, tedious, etc
- (tr) Australian to arrest; imprison
Word Origin for lumber
- to move awkwardly
- an obsolete word for rumble
Word Origin for lumber
"timber sawn into rough planks," 1660s, American English (Massachusetts), earlier "disused bit of furniture; heavy, useless objects" (1550s), probably from lumber (v.), perhaps influenced by Lombard, from the Italian immigrants famous as pawnbrokers and money-lenders in England (see Lombard). Lumbar, Lumbard were old alternative forms of Lombard in English. The evolution of sense then would be because a lumber-house ("pawn shop") naturally accumulates odds and ends of furniture.
Live Lumber; soldiers or passengers on board a ship are so called by the sailors.
LUMBER HOUSE. A house appropriated by thieves for the reception of their stolen property. ["Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence," London, 1811]
"to move clumsily," c.1300, lomere, probably from a Scandinavian source (cf. dialectal Swedish loma "move slowly, walk heavily," Old Norse lami "lame"), ultimately cognate with lame (adj.). Related: Lumbered; lumbering.