different between lumber vs pound

English

Etymology

Exact origin unknown. The earliest recorded reference was to heavy, useless objects such as old, discarded furniture. Perhaps from the verb lumber in reference to meaning "awkward to move". Possibly influenced by Lumbar, an obsolete variant of Lombard, the Italian immigrant class known for being pawnbrokers and money-lenders in early England.

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: l?m?b? IPA^(key): /?l?m.b?/
• (US) enPR: l?m?b?r IPA^(key): /?l?m.b?/
• Rhymes: -?mb?(r)

Noun

lumber (usually uncountable, plural lumbers)

1. (now rare) Old furniture or other items that take up room, or are stored away. [from 16th c.]
   • 1751, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, vol. III, ch. 88:

     I was visited by the duke of L—, a friend of my lord, who found me sitting upon a trunk, in a poor little dining-room filled with lumber, and lighted with two bits of tallow-candle, which had been left over night.

2. (figuratively) Useless or cumbrous material. [from 17th c.]
   • 1711, Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism:

     The bookful blockhead ignorantly read, / With loads of learned lumber in his head, […]

3. (obsolete) A pawnbroker's shop, or room for storing articles put in pawn; hence, a pledge, or pawn. [17th–18th c.]
   • 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.

4. (Canada, US) Wood sawn into planks or otherwise prepared for sale or use, especially as a building material. [from 17th c.]
   • 1782, H. de Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer:

     Here they live by fishing on the most plentiful coasts in the world; there they fell trees, by the sides of large rivers, for masts and lumber […] .

   • 1883, Chester A. Arthur, Third State of the Union Address, 4 December:

     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 political and commercial importance.;

5. (baseball, slang) A baseball bat.

Synonyms

• timber
• wood

Translations

Verb

lumber (third-person singular simple present lumbers, present participle lumbering, simple past and past participle lumbered)

1. (intransitive) To move clumsily and heavily; to move slowly.
   • 1816, Sir Walter Scott, The Antiquary

     ...he was only apprized of the arrival of the Monkbarns division by the gee-hupping of the postilion, as the post-chaise lumbered up behind him.

   • 2002, Russell Allen, "Incantations of the Apprentice", on Symphony X, The Odyssey.

2. (transitive, with with) To load down with things, to fill, to encumber, to impose an unwanted burden on
3. To heap together in disorder.
   • 1677, Thomas Rymer, The Tragedies of the Last Age Consider'd

     so much stuff lumberd together

4. To fill or encumber with lumber.

Related terms

• lumbering
• lumberingness

Translations

Anagrams

• Blumer, Bulmer, Rumble, rumble, umbrel

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pa?nd/
• Rhymes: -a?nd

Etymology 1

From Middle English pound, from Old English pund (“a pound, weight”), from Proto-Germanic *pund? (“pound, weight”), an early borrowing from Latin pond? (“by weight”), ablative form of pondus (“weight”), from Proto-Indo-European *pend-, *spend- (“to pull, stretch”). Cognate with Dutch pond, German Pfund, Swedish pund. Doublet of pood.

Noun

pound (plural pounds) (sometimes pound after numerals)

1. A unit of mass equal to 16 avoirdupois ounces (= 453.592 37 g). Today this value is the most common meaning of "pound" as a unit of weight.

   Synonym: lb

2. A unit of mass equal to 12 troy ounces (? 373.242 g). Today, this is a common unit of weight when measuring precious metals, and is little used elsewhere.

   Synonym: lb t

3. (US) The symbol # (octothorpe, hash)

   Synonyms: hash, sharp

4. The unit of currency used in the United Kingdom and its dependencies. It is divided into 100 pence.

   Synonyms: £, pound sterling, GBP, quid, nicker

5. Any of various units of currency used in Egypt and Lebanon, and formerly in the Republic of Ireland, Cyprus and Israel.

   Synonym: punt

6. Any of various units of currency formerly used in the United States.
7. Abbreviation for pound-force, a unit of force/weight. Using this abbreviation to describe pound-force is inaccurate and unscientific.

Usage notes

• Internationally, the "pound" has most commonly referred to the UK pound, £, (pound sterling). The other currencies were usually distinguished in some way, e.g., the "Irish pound" or the "punt".
• In the vicinity of each other country calling its currency the pound among English speakers the local currency would be the "pound", with all others distinguished, e.g., the "British pound", the "Egyptian pound" etc.
• The general plural of "pound" has usually been "pounds" (at least since Chaucer), but the continuing use of the Old English genitive or neuter "pound" as the plural after numerals (for both currency and weight) is common in some regions. It can be considered correct, or colloquial, depending on region.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• Pound (the unit of mass) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Pound (the UK unit of currency) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• crown, farthing, florin, guinea, penny, pence, shilling, sovereign, sterling

Etymology 2

From Middle English pounde, ponde, pund, from Old English pund (“an enclosure”), related to Old English pyndan (“to enclose, shut up, dam, impound”). Compare also Old English pynd (“a cistern, lake”).

Noun

pound (plural pounds)

1. A place for the detention of stray or wandering animals.

   Synonym: animal shelter
2. (metonymically) The people who work for the pound.
3. (Britain) A place for the detention of automobiles that have been illegally parked, abandoned, etc. Short form of impound.

   Synonyms: (UK) car pound, (US) impound lot, (US) impound
4. A section of a canal between two adjacent locks.

   Synonym: reach

5. A kind of fishing net, having a large enclosure with a narrow entrance into which fish are directed by wings spreading outward.
6. (Newfoundland) a division inside a fishing stage where cod is cured in salt brine

   Synonym: bulk

Usage notes

• Manx English uses this word uncountably.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

pound (third-person singular simple present pounds, present participle pounding, simple past and past participle pounded)

1. To confine in, or as in, a pound; to impound.
   • c. 1620, anonymous, “Tom o’ Bedlam’s Song” in Giles Earle his Booke (British Museum, Additional MSS. 24, 665):

     When I short haue shorne my sowce face
     & swigg’d my horny barrell,
     In an oaken Inne I pound my skin
     as a suite of guilt apparrell

Etymology 3

From an alteration of earlier poun, pown, from Middle English pounen, from Old English p?nian (“to pound, beat, bray, bruise, crush”), from Proto-Germanic *p?n?n? (“to break to pieces, pulverise”). Related to Saterland Frisian Pün (“debris, fragments”), Dutch puin (“debris, fragments, rubbish”), Low German pun (“fragments”). Perhaps influenced by Etymology 2 Middle English *pound, pond, from Old English *pund, pynd, in relation to the hollow mortar for pounding with the pestle.

Alternative forms

• poun, pown (obsolete or dialectal)

Verb

pound (third-person singular simple present pounds, present participle pounding, simple past and past participle pounded)

1. (transitive) To strike hard, usually repeatedly.

   Synonyms: hammer, pelt; see also Thesaurus:hit
2. (transitive) To crush to pieces; to pulverize.

   Synonyms: pulverate, triturate
3. (transitive, slang) To eat or drink very quickly.

   Synonyms: bolt, down, chug; see also Thesaurus:eat, Thesaurus:drink
4. (transitive, baseball, slang) To pitch consistently to a certain location.

5. (intransitive, of a body part, generally heart, blood, or head) To beat strongly or throb.
6. (transitive, vulgar, slang) To penetrate sexually, with vigour.

   Synonyms: drill, get up in, nail, poke; see also Thesaurus:copulate with
7. To advance heavily with measured steps.
8. (engineering) To make a jarring noise, as when running.

9. (slang, dated) To wager a pound on.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• bang

Noun

pound (plural pounds)

1. A hard blow.

   Synonym: pounding

Translations

Middle English

Alternative forms

• pounde, pund, punde, powund

Etymology

From Old English pund, in turn from Proto-Germanic *pund?, from Latin pond?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pu?nd/, /pund/

Noun

pound (plural poundes or pounden or pound)

1. A measurement for weight, most notably the Tower pound, merchant's pound or pound avoirdupois, or a weight of said measurement.
2. A pound or other silver coin (including ancient coins), weighing one Tower pound of silver.
3. Money or coinage in general, especially a great amount of it.

Descendants

• English: pound
• Scots: pund, poond

References

• “p?und(e, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-02-22.