• (British) enPR: lŭmʹbə IPA: /ˈlʌm.bə/
• (America) enPR: lŭmʹbər IPA: /ˈlʌm.bɚ/

lumber (uncountable)

1. (North America, 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;

   • 1883, Chester A. Arthur, wsource Third State of the Union Address (4 December 1883).

     The resources of Alaska, especially in fur, mines, and lumber, are considerable in extent and capable of large development, while its geographical situation is one of political and commercial importance.;

2. (UK) 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, […]

3. (obsolete) A pawnbroker's shop, or room for storing articles put in pawn; hence, a pledge, or pawn.

   • They put all the little plate they had in the lumber, which is pawning it, till the ships came.

4. (baseball, slang) A baseball bat.

• timber
• wood

• French: bois de charpente
• German: Bauholz
• Italian: legname
• Portuguese: madeira serrada
• Russian: пиломатериа́лы
• Spanish: madera aserrada

lumber (lumbers, present participle lumbering; past and past participle lumbered)

1. (intransitive) To move clumsily and heavily; to move slowly.
   • 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.

   • 2002, Russell Allen, "Incantations of the Apprentice", on Symphony X, The Odyssey.

     quote en

2. (transitive, with with) To load down with things, to fill, to encumber, to impose an unwanted burden on

   They’ve lumbered me with all these suitcases.

   I got lumbered with that boring woman all afternoon.

   • 1822, [Walter Scott], chapter XI, in Peveril of the Peak. [...] In Four Volumes, volume II, Edinburgh: Printed for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., OCLC 2392685 ↗, page 278 ↗:

     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.

3. To heap together in disorder.

   • stuff lumbered together

4. To fill or encumber with lumber.

   to lumber up a room

• lumbering
• lumberingness

• Italian: arrancare