LIMBER • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Limber

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/lˈɪmbər/ Listen

noun

Limber n.

pl. The shafts or thills of a wagon or carriage. (Prov. Eng.)

(Mil.) The detachable fore part of a gun carriage, consisting of two wheels, an axle, and a shaft to which the horses are attached. On top is an ammunition box upon which the cannoneers sit.

pl. (Naut.) Gutters or conduits on each side of the keelson to afford a passage for water to the pump well.

Limber boards (Naut.), short pieces of plank forming part of the lining of a ship's floor immediately above the timbers, so as to prevent the limbers from becoming clogged.

Limber box or Limber chest (Mil.), a box on the limber for carrying ammunition.

Limber rope, Limber chain or Limber clearer (Naut.), a rope or chain passing through the limbers of a ship, by which they may be cleared of dirt that chokes them.

Limber strake (Shipbuilding), the first course of inside planking next the keelson.

verb

Limber v. t. (past & past part. limbered; pres. part. limbering) (Mil.) To attach to the limber; as, to limber a gun.

To limber up, to change a gun carriage into a four-wheeled vehicle by attaching the limber.

Limber v. t. To cause to become limber; to make flexible or pliant.

adjective

Limber adj. Easily bent; flexible; pliant; yielding. "The bargeman that doth row with long and limber oar."

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Etymology of 'Limber'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Limber" Quotes from Famous Books

... goes over and sits down near table.] Nothing like the bag to limber one up. I feel like a fighting cock. Harry, let's go out on a ...

— The Human Drift • Jack London

... the accustomed comfort and glow of strength he began to run. When he came to Creep Head and there paused to survey Anxious Bight in a flash of the moon, he was tingling and warm and limber and eager. Yet he was dismayed by the prospect. No man could cross from Creep Head to Blow-me-Down Dick of Ragged Run Harbor in the dark. Doctor Rolfe considered the light. Communicating masses of ragged cloud were driving low across Anxious Bight. Offshore there was a sluggish bank of black ...

— Harbor Tales Down North - With an Appreciation by Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D. • Norman Duncan

... winter's night, (Unless old, hearsay memories tricked his sight), Along the pallid edge of the quiet sky He watched a nosing lorry grinding on, And straggling files of men; when these were gone, A double limber and six mules went by, Hauling the rations up through ruts and mud To trench-lines digged two hundred years ago. Then darkness hid them with a rainy scud, And soon he saw ...

— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon

... He has been married once or twice, and hath gotten certain things burned into him. As for this one," she went on, indicating Dessauer, "he may be doctor of all the wisdoms, as ye say, but he has never compassed the mystery of a woman. And this limber young spark with the quick eyes, he is a bachelor also, but ardently desires to be otherwise. I wot he has a pretty lass waiting for ...

— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett

... found the little schoolmaster the merriest comrade that ever sat with them over a glass. He had a crack for each of them, a song, a joke, a lively touch that cut and meant no harm. They called him "the little limber Frenchman," in allusion to a peculiarity of gait which in the minds of the heavy-limbed mountaineers was somehow associated with the idea of a ...

— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

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