timber - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

From Middle English tymber, from Old English timber, from Proto-West Germanic *timr, from Proto-Germanic *timrą (“building; timber”), from Proto-Indo-European *dem- (“to build; to arrange”) (see Proto-Indo-European *dṓm (“home, house”)).

Cognates

Cognate with Dutch timmer (“building, construction; chamber, room”), German Zimmer (“room, timber”), Luxembourgish Zëmmer (“room”), Yiddish צימער (tsimer, “room”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål tømmer (“timber”), Faroese and Icelandic timbur (“timber, wood”), Norwegian Nynorsk timber, tymbur, tømmer (“timber”), Swedish timmer (“timber”), Gothic 𐍄𐌹𐌼𐌱𐍂𐌾𐌰𐌽 (timbrjan), 𐍄𐌹𐌼𐍂𐌾𐌰𐌽 (timrjan, “to build, construct; to edify, strengthen”); also Breton danvez (“material, matter; fabric; fortune, wealth”), Cornish devnydh (“inhredient, material, stuff; use”), Irish and Scottish Gaelic damhna (“matter”), Welsh defnydd (“material, stuff; gear, implement, instrument; application; cause, occasion, reason”), Latin domus (“home, house”), Ancient Greek δόμος (dómos, “house; household”), Albanian dhomë (“chamber, room”), Latgalian noms (“house”), Latvian nams (“house”), Lithuanian namas (“house”), Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Russian дом (dom, “home, house”), Czech dům (“house”), Polish, Slovak, and Slovene dom (“home, house”), Serbo-Croatian до̑м, dȏm (“home, house”), Ukrainian дім (dim, “home, house; building”), Armenian տուն (tun, “home, house; family, household”), Avestan 𐬛𐬀𐬨 (dam, “house”), Sanskrit दम् (dam, “house”), दम (dama, “home”).

timber (countable and uncountable, plural timbers)

  1. (uncountable) Trees in a forest regarded as a source of wood.
    collect timber
    cut down timber
    • 2026 May, Hannah Martin, “Fancy Baskets”, in Architectural Digest, volume 83, number 4, page 97:
      Soon, he convinced his uncle to show him how to harvest ash, the local timber that—cut, hauled, sliced, and hand-pounded into thin strips—is typically used.
  2. (outside Canada, US, uncountable) Wood that has been pre-cut and is ready for use in construction.
  3. (countable) A heavy wooden beam, generally a whole log that has been squared off and used to provide heavy support for something such as a roof.
    the timbers of a ship
  4. Material for any structure.
  5. (firearms, informal) The wooden stock of a rifle or shotgun.
  6. (archaic) A certain quantity of fur skins (as of martens, ermines, sables, etc.) packed between boards; in some cases forty skins, in others one hundred and twenty. Also timmer, timbre.
  7. (cricket, slang) The stumps.

trees considered as a source of wood

wood that has been cut ready for construction

beam used to support something such as a roof or a ship

timber!

  1. Used by loggers to warn others that a tree being felled is falling.
    • 1961, Robert S. Close, With Hooves of Brass, Sydney: Horwitz Publications, page 34:
      From the core of the trunk come explosive cracks sounding like rifle-fire. The top of the tree begins swaying drunkenly, as if struggling to keep on its feet. The warning cry "Timber!"
  2. By extension, a cry used when anything is falling over.
    • 1991, Rex Mossop, The Moose That Roared, Sydney: Ironbark Press, page 160:
      The cameras caught the big man crashing to the studio floor. It seemed to take an age for Sticks to hit the deck and as he went down we all chorused "Timberrrr!"

warning shout used by loggers

timber (third-person singular simple present timbers, present participle timbering, simple past and past participle timbered)

  1. (transitive) To fit with timbers.
    timbering a roof
  2. (transitive, obsolete) To construct, frame, build.
    • 1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica‎[1], London: Edw. Dod & Nath. Ekins, published 1650, Book I, Chapter 5, p. 14:
      For many heads that undertake [learning], were never squared nor timbred for it.
  3. (falconry, intransitive) To light or land on a tree.
  4. (obsolete) To make a nest.
  5. (transitive) To surmount as a timber does.

timber n (definite singular timberet or timbret, uncountable)

  1. (pre-1938) alternative form of tømmer

From Proto-West Germanic *timr, from Proto-Germanic *timrą, from Proto-Indo-European *dem- (“build, house”) (see Proto-Indo-European *dṓm).

Cognates include Old Saxon timbar, Old High German zimbar, Old Norse timbr, Gothic 𐍄𐌹𐌼𐍂𐌾𐌰𐌽 (timrjan, “to build”), and Latin domus.

timber n

  1. timber
  2. building (both senses)

Strong _a_-stem:

From Old Norse timbr, from Proto-Germanic *timrą.

timber n

  1. timber; wood used for building

The template Template:gmq-osw-decl-noun-a-n does not use the parameter(s):

gen_sg=timbers acc_sg=timber nom_sg=timber nopl=1

Please see Module:checkparams for help with this warning.