limber

• IPA^(key): /ˈlɪmbə(ɹ)/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪmbə(ɹ)

Unknown; possibly related to limb or limp.

limber (comparative limberer, superlative limberest)

1. Flexible, pliant, bendable.

   He's so limber that he can kiss his knee without bending it.

   • 1567, George Turberville, “A Myrrour of the fall of Pride”, in Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs and Sonnets, page 155:

     Not yet the bargeman that doth rowe / with long and limber oare

   • 1998, Joel and Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski (motion picture), spoken by The Dude (Jeff Bridges):

     This is a very complicated case, Maude. A lot of ins, a lot of outs. Fortunately, I'm adhering to a pretty strict drug regimen to keep my mind limber.

limber (third-person singular simple present limbers, present participle limbering, simple past and past participle limbered)

1. To cause to become limber; to make flexible or pliant.
   • 1748, [Samuel Richardson], Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: […] S[amuel] Richardson;  […], →OCLC:

     Her stiff hams, that have not been bent to a civility for ten years past, are now limbered into courtesies three deep at every word

   • 1990, LOOM hint book, p. 12

     Go back to the Island and limber up with a few drafts.

a limber attached to a field artillery piece and an artillery tractor

For the obsolete limmer, from Old Norse limar (“branches”), plural of lim.[1]

limber (plural limbers)

1. (military) A two-wheeled vehicle to which a wheeled artillery piece or caisson may be attached for transport.
   • 1898, H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, page 83:

     As the limber gunners went to the rear, his horse trod in a rabbit-hole and came down, throwing him into a depression of the ground.

   • 1985, Peter Carey, Illywhacker, Faber and Faber, published 2003, page 29:

     we covered the rutted, rattling, dusty pot-holed roads of coastal Victoria, six big Walers in front, the cannon at the rear, and that unsprung cart they called a ‘limber’ in the middle.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Rudyard Kipling to this entry?)

2. (in the plural) The shafts or thills of a wagon or carriage.
3. (nautical, in the plural) Gutters or conduits on each side of the keelson to allow water to pass to the pump well.

• Sometimes the plural limbers was used to refer to a single such vehicle.

limber (third-person singular simple present limbers, present participle limbering, simple past and past participle limbered)

1. (obsolete) To prepare an artillery piece for transportation (i.e., to attach it to its limber.)

• unlimber

• caisson

• Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.
• limber on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• limbers and caissons on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Category:Limbers on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
• “limber”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “limber”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.