lumber
/ˈlʌm.bɚ/noun, verb
lumber is spelled L-U-M-B-E-R: 6 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 3.9 times per million words in written English, the 13,127th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “lumbar vs lumber” about 30 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, lumber means “Wood sawn into planks or otherwise prepared for sale or use, especially as a building material” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of lumber is lumbers.
How many letters and syllables are in lumber?
| Letters | 6: L-U-M-B-E-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.9 times per million words; the 13,127th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is lumber?
Lumber appears 3.9 times per million words in written English, the 13,127th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce lumber?
- UK /ˈlʌm.bə/
- US /ˈlʌm.bɚ/
- /ˈlʊm.bə/
Lumber has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-lumber.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with lumber
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with lumber?
3 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as lumber from its last stressed vowel (/ʌmbəɹ/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: rumble.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of lumber
- lumbers plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- lumbering participle, present
- lumbered participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does lumber mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
CanadaUSWood sawn into planks or otherwise prepared for sale or use, especially as a building material.
4 December 1883, Chester A. Arthur, Third State of the Union Address 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 poli
- 2
archaicOld furniture or other items that take up room, or are stored away.
We made all haste down stairs, and soon threw open the street door, for the reception of as much lumber, of all sorts, as our house would hold, brought into it by several who thought it necessary to move their furniture.
- 3
Useless or cumbrous material.
- 4
obsoleteA pawnbroker's shop, or room for storing articles put in pawn; hence, a pledge, or pawn.
a. 1746, Lady Grisell Baillie Murray, Memoirs of the Lives and Characters of the Right Honourable George Baillie They put all the little plate they had […] in the lumber, which is pawning it, till the ships came.
- 5
slangA baseball bat.
- 6
slangvulgarAn erect penis.
verb
- 1
To move clumsily and heavily; to move slowly.
- 2
To load down with things, to fill, to encumber, to impose an unwanted burden on.
They’ve lumbered me with all these suitcases.
- 3
To heap together in disorder.
- 4
To fill or encumber with lumber.
to lumber up a room
- 5
obsoleteslangTo pawn (goods).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Lumber in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense wood as building material:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | bois de charpente |
| German | Bauholz |
| Portuguese | madeira serrada |
| Spanish | madera aserrada, maderos aserrados |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does lumber come from?
Exact origin unknown. The earliest recorded reference for the noun was to heavy, useless objects such as old, discarded furniture. Perhaps from the verb lumber in reference to meaning "awkward to move"; Online Etymological Dictionary thinks this may derive from the same root as lame. Possibly influenced by Lumbar, an obsolete variant of Lombard, the Italian immigrant class known for being pawnbrokers and money-lenders in early England. Compare English lumpish.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).