timber
/ˈtɪmbɚ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.01 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
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.
Countable
Example Sentences
- "collect timber"
- "cut down timber"
- "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."
- "the timbers of a ship"
- "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!""
- "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!""
Etymology
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈtɪmbɚ/
- British English: /ˈtɪmbə/