LUMBER  , a word now meaning (2) useless discarded

furniture or other rubbish, particularly if of a bulky or heavy character; (2) timber, when roughly sawn or cut into logs or beams (see TIMBER); (3) as a verb, to make a loud rumbling noise, to move in a clumsy heavy way, also to burden with useless material, to encumber . " Lumber " and " lumber-house " were formerly used for a pawnbroker's shop, being in this sense a variant of " Lombard," a name familiar throughout Europe for a banker, money-changer or pawnbroker . This has frequently been taken to be the origin of the word in sense (I), the reference being to the store of unredeemed and unsaleable articles accumulating in pawnbrokers' shops . Skeat adopts this in preference to the connexion with " lumber " in sense (3), but thinks that the word may have been influenced by both sources (Etym . Diet., 1910), This word is probably of Scandinavian origin, and is cognate with a Swedish dialect word lomra, me fining " to roar," a frequentative of ljumma, " to make a noise." The English word may be of native origin and merely onomatopoeic . The New English Dictionary, though admitting the probability of the association with " Lombard," prefers the second proposed derivation . The application of the word to timber is of American origin; the New English Dictionary quotes from Suffolk (Mass.) Deeds of 2662—" Freighted in Boston, with beames .