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meaning of lumber

by Linnea Kohler Published 3 years ago Updated 2 years ago

Lumber, also known as timber, is wood that has been processed into beams and planks, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for structural purposes but has many other uses as well.

Full Answer

How is lumber and timber the same thing?

  • Determine the species. ...
  • Determine the surface measurement (SM). ...
  • Determine the poor face, which is the side with the lowest grade.
  • Assume a trial grade for the piece of lumber and then see if all the conditions for that grade are met.
  • Determine if lumber size requirements (length and width) are met for the chosen grade.

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What are two meanings for the word lumber?

logs or timber cut for use; to move in a slow, clumsy, noisy way: He lumbers along like an old, angry bear. n. 1. Timber sawed into boards, planks, or other structural members of standard or specified length. 2. Something useless or cumbersome. 3. Chiefly British Miscellaneous stored articles. 1. a.

What does the name lumber mean?

  • Varies from pale yellow-brown with a pinkish tint
  • Straight grain
  • Medium to coarse texture
  • Medium bending and crushing strength
  • Low stiffness
  • Used for furniture, cabinet making, heavy construction, pews, boat building, wagon bottoms, and coffins.

How do you use lumber in a sentence?

Short & Simple Example Sentence For Lumber | Lumber Sentence

  • The lumber business was still good.
  • Collins is the go-between in this crooked lumber deal.
  • Four billion feet of lumber are cut here in a year.
  • Can you convert these old forests into lumber or cordwood?
  • Had a lot of waste lumber and worked it up into dog houses.
  • Couldn't buy lumber 'r wire.
  • Some lumber I am handling at a loss.

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What is the full meaning of lumber?

lumber, timbernoun. the wood of trees cut and prepared for use as building material.

What does lumber mean as a verb?

lumber 2. [ luhm-ber ] SHOW IPA. / ˈlʌm bər / PHONETIC RESPELLING. verb (used without object) to move clumsily or heavily, especially from great or ponderous bulk: overloaded wagons lumbering down the dirt road.

What does lumber mean in science?

Lumber, also known as timber, is wood that has been processed into beams and planks, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for structural purposes but has many other uses as well.

Why do they call it lumber?

Timber comes from an Old English word that was originally used to mean “house, building material, wood, trees.” The noun lumber comes from the verb lumber, meaning “to move clumsily or awkwardly,” such as due to carrying something heavy (like planks of wood).

What part of speech is lumber?

LUMBER (verb) definition and synonyms | Macmillan Dictionary.

What does lumber mean in Scottish?

A relationship with someone of the opposite sexScottish National Dictionary (1700–) LUMBER, n. A relationship with someone of the opposite sex; a girlfriend or boyfriend.Sc. 1992 Herald 14 Nov 2: For the tiresomely fashionable, it is not a place [the disco], if you will excuse an old-fashioned phrase, "to get a lumber".

What is lumber answer in one word?

1. uncountable noun. Lumber consists of trees and large pieces of wood that have been roughly cut up. [mainly US]

What is lumber in civil engineering?

Timber or Lumber is nothing but wood used for building and other engineering purposes. It is obtained from the trunk of trees. Trees give different types of timber which can be used for different kinds of works.

What is the synonym of lumber?

1'a spare room packed with lumber' jumble, clutter, odds and ends, bits and pieces, bits and bobs, rummage, bric-a-brac, oddments, miscellanea, sundries, knick-knacks, flotsam and jetsam, cast-offs, white elephants, stuff, things. rejects, trash, refuse, litter. British rubbish.

What is lumber in tree?

lumber, collective term for harvested wood, whether cut into logs, heavy timbers, or members used in light-frame construction. Lumber is classified as hardwood or softwood. The term often refers specifically to the products derived from logs in a sawmill.

What is the root word of lumber?

lumber (v.1) "to move clumsily," c. 1300, lomere, probably from a Scandinavian source (compare dialectal Swedish loma "move slowly, walk heavily," Old Norse lami "lame"), which is perhaps from PIE root *lem- "break in pieces," with derivatives meaning "crippled," and ultimately cognate with lame (adj.).

Is lumber a timber?

The product of timber cut into boards tends to be referred to as 'lumber' in the United States and Canada. If, however, the boards and sawn wood products are of five inches diameter or greater, they can be referred to as 'timbers'.

What does "lumber" mean?

lum•ber 1. (ˈlʌm bər) n. 1. timber sawed or split into planks, boards, etc. 2. miscellaneous useless articles that are stored away. v.i. 3. to cut timber and prepare it for market. v.t. 4. to convert (a specified amount, area, etc.) into lumber.

What is an attic?

Attics, says the dictionary, are "places where lumber is stored," and the world has used them to store a good deal of its lumber in at one time or another. View in context. There was an old truckle-bed among the lumber, on which one of the gentlemen might rest. View in context.

What is lumber used for?

Lumber is mainly used for structural purposes but has many other uses as well. Lumber may be supplied either rough- sawn, or surfaced on one or more of its faces. Besides pulpwood, rough lumber is the raw material for furniture-making, and manufacture of other items requiring cutting and shaping.

What is finished lumber?

Finished lumber is supplied in standard sizes, mostly for the construction industry – primarily softwood, from coniferous species, including pine, fir and spruce (collectively spruce-pine-fir ), cedar, and hemlock, but also some hardwood, for high-grade flooring.

How is lumber cut?

Lumber is cut by ripsaw or resaw to create dimensions that are not usually processed by a primary sawmill . Re-sawing is the splitting of 25 by 300 millimetres (1 by 12 in) hardwood or softwood lumber into two or more thinner pieces of full-length boards.

What is green building?

Green building minimizes the impact or "environmental footprint" of a building. Wood is a major building material that is renewable and replenishable in a continuous cycle. Studies show manufacturing wood uses less energy and results in less air and water pollution than steel and concrete. However, demand for lumber is blamed for deforestation.

What is the nominal dimension of lumber?

Lumber's nominal dimensions are larger than the actual standard dimensions of finished lumber. Historically, the nominal dimensions were the size of the green (not dried), rough (unfinished) boards that eventually became smaller finished lumber through drying and planing (to smooth the wood).

What is timber framing?

Main article: Timber framing. Timber framing is a style of construction that uses heavier framing elements than modern stick framing, which uses dimensional lumber. The timbers originally were tree boles squared with a broadaxe or adze and joined together with joinery without nails.

How thick is 4/4 lumber?

3⁄4 in (95 mm) Also in North America, hardwood lumber is commonly sold in a "quarter" system, when referring to thickness; 4/4 (four quarter) refers to a 1-inch-thick (25 mm) board, 8/4 (eight quarter) is a 2-inch-thick (51 mm) board, etc.

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Where did lumber originate?

Our familiar sense of lumber, meaning basically “sawn planks,” was born in North America in the 17th century. But that’s one of the few things we can say with certainty about the word’s odd history. This new use of the word showed up in print just decades after the Pilgrims' arrival in 1620.

What is a lombard house?

And because lending at its most basic level often involved pawning goods as security for loans, the Italians’ pawnshops came to be known as lombard-houses or lumber-houses, or simply lombards or lumbards. Since pawnshops have historically had a sketchy reputation as repositories ...

Is timber used in construction?

In Britain, the word timber has long been used not only for standing trees suitable for construction but for sawn planks as well. Only in North America—a continent of vast forests when the settlers arrived, at a time when Britain was already largely denuded of its woods—do we distinguish between timber and lumber.

Quick summary

In the US and Canada, timber is typically used to collectively refer to trees—or the wood of such trees—that have yet to be cut or processed, while lumber typically refers to wood that has been processed as a building material (boards and planks). Elsewhere, especially in the UK, the word timber is used to mean the same thing as lumber.

What is timber?

Timber most commonly refers to the wood of trees that can or will be used for building material. The word can refer to living, standing trees themselves or to trees that have been cut down but not yet processed (meaning they have not yet been milled or cut into planks).

What is lumber?

Lumber typically refers collectively to wood that’s been processed for use as a building material—wood that has been milled and cut into boards or planks. This cutting happens in a lumbermill, and the finished product is sold at a lumberyard.

Where do timber and lumber come from?

Etymologically, it’s just a coincidence that timber and lumber both end with -mber. Timber comes from an Old English word that was originally used to mean “house, building material, wood, trees.” The noun lumber comes from the verb lumber, meaning “to move clumsily or awkwardly,” such as due to carrying something heavy (like planks of wood).

Looking for more explanation?

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What is rough sawn lumber used for?

Rough sawn lumber is commonly used in furniture and cabinet making, where there is a need to do additional cutting to size, while finished lumber is the standard for construction projects. In some instances, the nominal strength or available sizes of lumber are insufficient for the application.

Is timber considered lumber?

Timber is considered by and large as less of a processed wood product and can also refer to intact trees which have not been cut, while lumber is usually thought of as wood that has been cut to standard sizes and sold commercially for construction use.

Overview

Lumber, also known as timber, is wood that has been processed into beams and planks, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for structural purposes but has many other uses as well.
Lumber may be supplied either rough-sawn, or surfaced on one or more of its faces. Besides pulpwood, rough lumber is the raw material for furniture-makin…

Terminology

In the United States and Canada, milled boards are called lumber, while timber describes standing or felled trees.
In contrast, in Britain, many other Commonwealth nations and Ireland, the term timber is used in both senses. (The word lumber is rarely used in relation to wood and has several other meanings.)
Re-manufactured lumber is the result of secondary or tertiary processing of previously milled lu…

Conversion of wood logs

Logs are converted into timber by being sawn, hewn, or split. Sawing with a rip saw is the most common method, because sawing allows logs of lower quality, with irregular grain and large knots, to be used and is more economical. There are various types of sawing:
• Plain sawn (flat sawn, through and through, bastard sawn) – A log sawn throu…

Dimensional lumber

Dimensional lumber is lumber that is cut to standardized width and depth, often specified in millimetres or inches. Carpenters extensively use dimensional lumber in framing wooden buildings. Common sizes include 2×4 (pictured) (also two-by-four and other variants, such as four-by-two in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK), 2×6, and 4×4. The length of a board is usually specified separately from th…

Defects in lumber

Defects occurring in lumber are grouped into the following four divisions:
During the process of converting timber to commercial form the following defects may occur:
• Chip mark: this defect is indicated by the marks or signs placed by chips on the finished surface of timber
• Diagonal grain: improper sawing of timber

Durability and service life

Under proper conditions, wood provides excellent, lasting performance. However, it also faces several potential threats to service life, including fungal activity and insect damage – which can be avoided in numerous ways. Section 2304.11 of the International Building Code addresses protection against decay and termites. This section provides requirements for non-residential constructi…

Timber framing

Timber framing is a style of construction that uses heavier framing elements than modern stick framing, which uses dimensional lumber. The timbers originally were tree boles squared with a broadaxe or adze and joined together with joinery without nails. Modern timber framing has been growing in popularity in the United States since the 1970s.

Environmental effects of lumber

Green building minimizes the impact or "environmental footprint" of a building. Wood is a major building material that is renewable and replenishable in a continuous cycle. Studies show manufacturing wood uses less energy and results in less air and water pollution than steel and concrete. However, demand for lumber is blamed for deforestation.
The conversion from coal to biomass power is a growing trend in the United States.

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