OED2, TIMBER, sb. 1.
2. Building material generally; material for the construction of houses, ships, etc., or (in extended sense)
of any manufactured article; the matter or substance of which anything is built up or composed; matter,
material, stuff.
'Timber, or stuffe to build withall' (Cotgrave, mareschaucées, 1611)
3. Wood used for the building of houses, ships, etc., or for the use of the carpenter, joiner, or other artisan;
wood in general as a material; esp. after it has been suitably trimmed and squared into logs, or further
adapted to constructive uses.
'A cleauer, chipper, or squarer of timber; he that doth the first work thats to be done vpon a piece
of timber' (Cotgrave, baucheron, 1611)
'timber, wodde, the body of the tree vnder the barke, wood felled for necessarie vses' (T. Thomas,
materia, 1587)
'A short peece of timber indented within another peece, thereby to hold it the faster' (Cotgrave,
entrait, 1611)
[3.]b. Wood as a substance, or as the material of small utensils or parts of them.
'A kinde of painting, when many peeces of horne, Iuorie, or timber, painted of diuers colours are
fitlie set vpon chests, or playing tables' (Thomas Thomas, cerostrotum, 1587)
4.a. Applied to the wood of growing trees capable of being used for structural purposes; hence collectively
to the trees themselves; standing timber, trees, woods.
'A sale of timber, or of great and high trees' (Cotgrave, vente, 1611)
'Box, Poplar, Aspe, Alder, and other such trees, whose wood is no timber' (Cotgrave, blanc
bois, 1611)
'A tree hauing leaues like the Pine Tree, the tymber being apt for building' (T. Thomas,
larix, 1587)
[4.]b. spec. in English Law, Trees growing upon land, and forming part of the freehold inheritance:
embracing generally the oak, ash, and elm, of the age of twenty years or more; in particular districts, by
local custom, including other trees, with various limitations as to age.
'Certaine trees marked out for limits vnto the sale of Wood; or as bounds betweene Groues of
Timber-wood, and Copses of Vnderwood; also, trees that diuide seuerall Tenements, or
Inheritances' (Cotgrave, pieds-corniers, 1611)
5. transf. Applied to any object familiar to the speaker, composed wholly or chiefly of wood.
'The beame, tree, or timber of a presse; the thickest, and longest peece of wood belonging to it'
(Cotgrave, arbre, 1611)
6. A single beam of piece of wood forming or capable of forming part of any structure.
'that piece of tymber that is sette to staie or kepe up a fallyng howse.' (William Thomas,
bordone, 1550)
7. fig. Bodily structure, frame, build; also, in later use, the 'stuff' of which a person is made; personal
quality or character. [no examples]
8. attrib. or adj. Made or consisting of wood; wooden. [no examples]
OED2, TIMBER-YARD, sb.: An open yard or place where timber
is stacked or stored.
'A carpenters timber yearde, where he maketh frames of houses' (T. Thomas, fabrica,
1587)
OED2, TIMBERED, ppl. a., 2b. Of a person or animal: Having
(such and such) a bodily structure or constitution; framed, built.
'A cleane timberd man, one that hath not too much flesh on his backe' (Cotgrave,
deschargé, 1611)