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Origin and history of timber

timber(n.)

Middle English timber "wood cut and prepared for use as building material; wood suitable for making houses or ships or for carpentry;" from Old English timber, originally "building, structure," in late Old English "building material, growing trees yielding wood suitable for building," and by extension "trees or woods in general."

This is reconstructed to be from Proto-Germanic *tem(b)ra- (source also of Old Saxon timbar "a building, room," Old Frisian timber "wood, building," Old High German zimbar "timber, wooden dwelling, room," Old Norse timbr "timber," German Zimmer "room"), according to Watkins from PIE *deme- "to build," possibly a form of the root *dem- meaning "house, household" (source of Greek domos, Latin domus).

For timbers in nautical slang expressions, see shiver (v.2)); the meaning is "pieces of wood composing the frames of a ship's hull" (1748). Slang timber-toes "wooden-legged man" is by 1785.

The timber-wolf (1846), ordinary large wolf of the U.S. West, is the gray wolf, not confined to forests but so-called to distinguish it from the prairie-wolf (coyote). Timberdoodle, colloquial name for the American woodcock, is attested by 1889; earlier the name of an alcoholic drink (1842).

timber(v.)

Old English timbran, timbrian, "to build," verb from the source of timber (n.). It was the chief Old English word for "to build," but now is obsolete in this sense. Compare Dutch timmeren, German zimmern. As "furnish with timber" from 1570s. As a call of warning when a cut tree is about to fall, attested from 1912 in Canadian English. Related: Timbered "wooded, having trees" (1701).

Entries linking to timber

shiver(v.2)

"to break in or into many small pieces; to burst, fly, or fall apart at once into many pieces," mid-14c., shiveren, from shiver (n.2) or its source.

Chiefly in the phrase shiver my timbers (1794), "a mock oath attributed in comic fiction to sailors" [OED]. Start my timbers in the same sense is by 1775; smite my timbers by 1782; split by 1786; burst by 1791). My timbers! as a nautical oath is attested by 1775, and timber (n.) "pieces of wood composing the frames of a ship's hull" seems to have been 18c. sailor's slang for "arms and legs" (perhaps with a grim awareness that some of theirs might be of wood after a sea-battle; compare timber-toe "wooden leg," in Grose). Related: Shivered; shivering.

build(v.)

Middle English bilden, from late Old English byldan "construct a house," verb form of bold "house," from Proto-Germanic *buthla- (source also of Old Saxon bodl, Old Frisian bodel "building, house"), from PIE *bhu- "to dwell," from root*bheue- "to be, exist, grow."

Rare in Old English; in Middle English it won out over the more common Old English timbran (see timber). The modern spelling is unexplained. Figurative use is from mid-15c. Of physical things other than buildings from late 16c. Related: Builded (archaic); built; building.

In the United States, this verb is used with much more latitude than in England. There, as Fennimore Cooper puts it, everything is BUILT. The priest BUILDS up a flock; the speculator a fortune; the lawyer a reputation; the landlord a town; and the tailor, as in England, BUILDS up a suit of clothes. A fire is BUILT instead of made, and the expression is even extended to individuals, to be BUILT being used with the meaning of formed. [Farmer, "Slang and Its Analogues," 1890]

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