Etymology
1. O.E.
timber "building, structure," later "building material, trees suitable for building," and "wood in general," from P.Gmc.
*temran (cf. O.Fris.
timber "wood, building," O.H.G.
zimbar "timber, wooden dwelling, room," O.N.
timbr "timber," Ger.
Zimmer "room"), from PIE
*demrom-, from base
*dem-/*dom- "build" (source of Gk.
domos, L.
domus; see domestic). The O.E. verb
timbran, timbrian was the chief word for "to build" (cf. Du.
timmeren, Ger.
zimmern). As a call of warning when a cut tree is about to fall, it is attested from 1912 in Canadian Eng.
Timbers in the nautical slang sense (see shiver (n.)) is from the specialized meaning "pieces of wood composing the frames of a ship's hull" (1748).
2. 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”)).
3. Cognates
4. 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”). See: Cornish '
devnydh', Armenian '
տուն', Sanskrit '
दम्'.
Verbs referencing "timber"
German, old spelling
zimmern.