different between tread vs lumber

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t??d/
• Rhymes: -?d

Etymology 1

From Middle English treden, from Old English tredan, from Proto-West Germanic *tredan, from Proto-Germanic *trudan?.

Verb

tread (third-person singular simple present treads, present participle treading, simple past trod or tread or treaded, past participle trod or tread or trodden or treaded)

1. (intransitive) To step or walk (on or across something); to trample.
2. (transitive) To step or walk upon.

3. (figuratively, with certain adverbs of manner) To proceed, to behave (in a certain manner).

4. To beat or press with the feet.

5. To work a lever, treadle, etc., with the foot or the feet.
6. To go through or accomplish by walking, dancing, etc.

   • I am resolved to forsake Malta, tread a pilgrimage to fair Jerusalem.
7. To crush under the foot; to trample in contempt or hatred; to subdue.
8. (intransitive) To copulate; said of (especially male) birds.
9. (transitive, of a male bird) To copulate with.

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

10. (transitive) To crush grapes with one's feet to make wine

    Synonym: stomp

Usage notes

• Treaded is not commonly used in the UK and is less common in the US as well. It is apparently used more often in tread water.
• Tread is sometimes used as a past and past participle, especially in the US.

Derived terms

Related terms

• trade

Translations

Etymology 2

From Middle English tred, from treden (“to tread”).

Noun

tread (plural treads)

1. A step taken with the foot.
2. A manner of stepping.

   • She is coming, my own, my sweet; / Were it ever so airy a tread, / My heart would hear her and beat.

3. The sound made when someone or something is walking.
   • 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

     The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, for all they went so slowly; it was different indeed from the heavy creaking tread of Henry Jekyll. Utterson sighed. "Is there never anything else?" he asked.

   • 1896, Bret Harte, Barker's Luck and Other Stories

     But when, after a singularly heavy tread and the jingle of spurs on the platform, the door flew open to the newcomer, he seemed a realization of our worst expectations.

4. (obsolete) A way; a track or path.

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

5. The horizontal part of a step in a flight of stairs.
6. The grooves carved into the face of a tire, used to give the tire traction. [from 1900s]
7. The grooves on the bottom of a shoe or other footwear, used to give grip or traction.
8. (biology) The chalaza of a bird's egg; the treadle.
9. The act of avian copulation in which the male bird mounts the female by standing on her back.
10. (fortification) The top of the banquette, on which soldiers stand to fire over the parapet.
11. A bruise or abrasion produced on the foot or ankle of a horse that interferes, or strikes its feet together.

Synonyms

• (horizontal part of a step): run

Antonyms

• (horizontal part of a step): rise, riser

Derived terms

• retread (Etymology 1)

Translations

See also

• tread on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

References

Anagrams

• E-tard, adret, dater, derat, drate, rated, tared, trade

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