Word.ws English Dictionary

limber

/ˈlɪmbə(ɹ)/

limber adjective: flexible, pliant, bendable.

limber: flexible, pliant, bendable
Image: Lockeyear (Lt) War Office official photographer, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Adjective

limber (comparative limberer, superlative limberest)

  1. Flexible, pliant, bendable.
    • He's so limber that he can kiss his knee without bending it.
    • Not yet the bargeman that doth rowe / with long and limber oare1567, George Turberville, “A Myrrour of the fall of Pride”, in Epitaphs, Epigrams, Songs and Sonnets, page 155

Verb (1)

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

  1. (transitive) To cause to become limber; to make flexible or pliant.
    • Her stiff hams, that have not been bent to a civility for ten years past, are now limbered into courtesies three deep at every word1748, [Samuel Richardson], Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; [a]nd sold by John Osborn, […], →OCLC
    • Go back to the Island and limber up with a few drafts.1990, LOOM hint book, p. 12

Noun

limber (plural limbers)

  1. A two-wheeled vehicle to which a wheeled artillery piece may be attached for transport. (Some versions have built-in storage bins for ammunition. Either the limber itself or the ammunition box may also be called a caisson.)
    • An' when the smoke 'ad cleared away, before the limber wheels, / There lay the Driver's Brother with 'is 'ead between 'is 'eels.1892, Rudyard Kipling, “Snarleyow”, in Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses, 3rd edition, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 37
    • 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.1895–1897, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “At the Window”, in The War of the Worlds, London: William Heinemann, published 1898, →OCLC, book I (The Coming of the Martians), page 83
  2. (in plural) The shafts or thills of a wagon or carriage.
  3. (in plural) Gutters or conduits on each side of the keelson to allow water to pass to the pump well.

Verb (2)

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.)

limber meaning in Urdu and Malayalam

limber in Urdu

لچکدار, لوچ دار

limber in Malayalam

nimble, lithe, supple
അയവുള്ള, എളുപ്പം വളയുന്ന, വഴങ്ങുന്ന, വളയുന്ന, മയമുള്ള, വളയ്ക്കാവുന്ന

Examples of limber in a sentence

  • Fortunately, I'm adhering to a pretty strict drug regimen to keep my mind limber.1998, Joel and Ethan Coen, The Big Lebowski (motion picture), spoken by The Dude (Jeff Bridges):
  • 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.1985, Peter Carey, Illywhacker, Faber and Faber, published 2003, page 29:

All 16 example sentences with limber

Antonyms of limber

Forms of limber

Adjective
comparativelimberer
superlativelimberest
Verb
third-person singular presentlimbers
present participlelimbering
past participlelimbered
pastlimbered
Noun
plurallimbers

Origin of limber

Unknown; possibly related to limb or limp + -er, as seen in clever, slipper (“slippery”), waker (“alert”), etc.

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

Words formed from limber

Words that rhyme with limber

Questions about limber

What does limber mean?
Limber means flexible, pliant, bendable.
What is limber in Urdu?
Limber in Urdu is لچکدار, لوچ دار. See Limber meaning in Urdu.
How do you use limber in a sentence?
Fortunately, I'm adhering to a pretty strict drug regimen to keep my mind limber.
What part of speech is limber?
Limber can be an adjective, a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce limber?
Limber is pronounced /ˈlɪmbə(ɹ)/.

Words near limber in the dictionary

  1. limbecked
  2. limbecking
  3. limbecks
  4. limbecs
  5. limbed
  6. limber
  7. limber as a dishrag
  8. limber honeysuckle
  9. limber tail
  10. limber tail syndrome
  11. limber up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: limber (page history and authors); limber (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); limber (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-limber.wav.

Cite this entry: “limber.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/limber. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.