lumber [LME] The earliest lumber in English meant ‘to move in a slow, heavy, awkward way’. Its origin is not known, but its form may have been intended to suggest clumsiness or heaviness, rather like lump [ME]. This may have been the origin of lumber [M16th] in the sense ‘disused furniture and articles that take up space’, but people also associated the term with the old word lumber meaning ‘a pawnbroker’s shop’, which was an alteration of Lombard or ‘person from Lombardy’, known for their moneylending activities. The mainly North American sense ‘timber sawn into rough planks’ [M17th] appears to be a development of the ‘disused furniture’ meaning, as is the verb to be lumbered [M17th] or burdened with something unwanted as if overwhelmed by unwanted stuff.