Limber
//ˈlɪmbə(ɹ)// adj, noun, verb
adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A two-wheeled vehicle to which a wheeled artillery piece or caisson may be attached for transport.
"An' when the smoke 'ad cleared away, before the limber wheels, / There lay the Driver's Brother with 'is 'ead between 'is 'eels."
- 2 a two-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle used to pull a field gun or caisson wordnet
- 3 The shafts or thills of a wagon or carriage. in-plural
- 4 Gutters or conduits on each side of the keelson to allow water to pass to the pump well. in-plural
Verb
- 1 To cause to become limber; to make flexible or pliant. transitive
"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"
- 2 To prepare an artillery piece for transportation (i.e., to attach it to its limber.) obsolete
- 3 cause to become limber wordnet
- 4 attach the limber wordnet
Adjective
- 1 Flexible, pliant, bendable.
"He's so limber that he can kiss his knee without bending it."
Adjective
- 1 (used of persons' bodies) capable of moving or bending freely wordnet
- 2 (used of artifacts) easily bent wordnet
- 3 (used of e.g. personality traits) readily adaptable wordnet
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"A good yoga session can limber you up like nothing else."
Etymology
Etymology 1
Unknown; possibly related to limb or limp + -er, as seen in clever, slipper (“slippery”), waker (“alert”), etc.
Etymology 2
For the obsolete limmer, from Old Norse limar (“branches”), plural of lim.
Related phrases
More for "limber"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.