Lumber

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /ˈlʌm.bə/

Definitions

1. Heavy timber sawed into boards and planks for use in construction and carpentry
2. Processed wood, typically large in size and used for construction purposes, refers to timber that has been cut and shaped for various building applications
3. Wood that has been cut and prepared for construction purposes ; to move in a slow, awkward, or heavy way

Etymology: The earliest recorded sense of this word was not timber at all but heavy, useless junk: old, discarded furniture that cluttered a house and was hard to shift. Only later did it come to mean sawn wood, and the connection between the two senses is still a matter of guesswork. The most plausible explanation links the noun to the verb "lumber," meaning to move clumsily or to be awkward and heavy in motion, the sort of cumbersome lurching that a pile of bulky objects produces. Some etymologists trace that verb to the same root as "lame," which would give the idea of something unwieldy and hard to handle. Another suggestion, less certain, connects it to "Lumbar," an obsolete English form of "Lombard," used for the Italian immigrants who worked as pawnbrokers and money-lenders in early England, with the sense of heavy, hard-to-dispose-of goods being a possible echo. A related English word, "lumpish," meaning heavy and dull, shows the same clumsy, weighty flavour.

Synonyms: timber, wood, plank, board, logs