limber

Unknown; possibly related to limb or limp.

limber (comparative limberer, superlative limberest)

1. Flexible, pliant, bendable.

   He's so limber that he can kiss his knee without bending it.

   • Turberville

     The bargeman that doth row with long and limber oar.

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

1. To cause to become limber; to make flexible or pliant.
   • (Can we find and add a quotation of Richardson to this entry?)

a limber attached to a field artillery piece and an artillery tractor

For the obsolete limmer, from Old Norse limar (“branches”), plural of lim.[1]

limber (plural limbers)

1. (military) A two-wheeled vehicle to which a wheeled artillery piece or caisson may be attached for transport.
2. (Should we delete⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (obsolete) A two-wheeled, horse-drawn vehicle used to pull an artillery piece into battle.
3. (Should we delete⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (military) The detachable fore part of a gun carriage, consisting of two wheels, an axle, and a shaft to which the horses are attached. On top is an ammunition box upon which the cannoneers sit.
   • 1985, Peter Carey, Illywhacker, Faber and Faber 2003, p. 29:

     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.

4. (in the plural) The shafts or thills of a wagon or carriage.
5. (nautical, in the plural) Gutters or conduits on each side of the keelson to allow water to pass to the pump well.

• Sometimes the plural limbers was used to refer to a single such vehicle.

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.)

• unlimber

• caisson

• Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., 1989.
• limber on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Limbers on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
• limber at OneLook Dictionary Search
• limber in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• Notes: