timber
Pluraltimbers (some meanings)
Verbtimbers, timbering, timbered
Pluraltimbers (some meanings)
Formstimbers, timbering, timbered
- 1Wood that has been cut into pieces and is ready to use for building.
Like bricks stacked and ready to build with.
We ordered enough timber to frame the entire house.
The timber arrived at the site already cut to length.
UsageSay a piece of timber. In North America people usually say lumber.
- 2Trees in a forest that people grow and cut down for their wood.
Like a field of crops, except the crop is trees grown for wood.
The company owns thousands of acres of timber in the north.
Every winter the crews cut timber from the lower slopes.
UsageSay cut timber or harvest timber.
Similarforest, trees, woodland, woods
Note
- 3A heavy wooden beam used to hold up something like a roof.
Like a thick wooden bone holding up a building.
A heavy timber held up the sagging roof of the cottage.
Workers replaced the rotten timbers under the old barn.
UsageSay three timbers for beams, but a pile of timber for wood.
Similarbeam
Note
- 4The qualities that make a person right for a role, like 'officer timber', or what something is made of.
Like the cloth a coat is cut from.
Everyone at work agreed she was management timber.
Scouts said the young pitcher was big-league timber.
UsagePut a job word before it: management timber.
- 5
Less common meanings
- 6A shout that warns people a cut tree is falling, or, as a joke, that anything is falling.
The lumberjack shouted "Timber!" as the great pine began to topple.
"Timber!" she called, and everyone scrambled clear of the falling trunk.
Note
- 7
- 8
- 9To build or put a structure together.
For many heads that undertake [learning], were never squared nor timbred for it.
1646, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia EpidemicaHere, timbred means built or shaped, made fit for something.Note
- 10Of a bird, to build a nest.
Note
- 11An old way of counting fur skins, packed in bundles of forty or sometimes one hundred twenty.
Note
- 12The wooden part of a gun that you hold against your shoulder.
- 13Of a bird, to land and settle on a tree.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
It comes from Old English 'timber', which goes back to an old root meaning 'to build' or 'house'.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Timber comes from Old English timber. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English timber traces back to a root glossed as build, house. en.wiktionary.org