lumber n.1
1. (also lumber ken) a pawnshop.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Vocabularium Hispanico-Latinum n.p.: Mónte de piedád, a lumber or bancke to lend money for a yeare, for those that need, without interest [OED]. | |
| Modern Flash Dict. 21: Lumber ken – a pawnbroker’s shop. | |
| Swell’s Night Guide 125/1: Lumber ken a pawnbroker’s shop. | |
| Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835]. |
2. the state of being in pawn.
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 76/1: A different and tidier suit of clothes [...] which, by the way were brought out of ‘lumber’ with part of the money I had made a present of to the old lady. |
3. stolen goods.
| Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 98: They took several Trunks to ease the Owner of Lumber. | |
| Swell’s Night Guide 58: They stalked off to the dossery, where I take my green’un; pinches his skin and ticker, darks the lumber, and planted Flabby Bet on him; she eased him of his fawney, tipped him the glue, officed her cullies, they pasted his nibs, and scarpered rumbo. |
4. a lodging house or room, esp. one used for storing stolen goods.
| Discoveries (1774) 37: They pike up the Prancers; that is, go up Stairs, and frisk the Lumbers; that is, search the Rooms. | |
| Life’s Painter 137: Have you any body in the lumber behind the bar? | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Vocab. of the Flash Lang. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| ‘Rowling Joey & Moll Blabbermums’ in Corinthian in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 43: [as 1789]. | |
| Swell’s Night Guide 73: Send me to scragums and cut my rant! tot my scran slum! if I ever did pipe sich a lumber as that ere den is. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 16 Oct. 1/3: Shift the cove to our lumber. | |
| Yokel’s Preceptor 30: A Lumber, A room in which a performance is given. | |
 | Ally Sloper’s Half-Holiday 4 May n.p.: He was drinking in a lumber-house, near Billingsgate [F&H]. | |
| Townsville Daily Bulletin (Aus.) 14 June 13: ‘The lumber’ is the place where stolen jewellery and other valuables are disposed of. | |
| Sharpe of the Flying Squad 332: lumber : Hide-out for stolen property. | |
| Fings II i: No, his drum, his kip, his lumber gaff. |
5. anywhere frequented by confidence tricksters and similar villains.
| New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: lumber a house convenient for the reception of swindlers, sharpers, and cheats. | |
| Dict. Sl. and Cant. | |
| Flash Dict. |
6. a public house, thus one of its rooms.
| New Sprees of London 16: [I]t has since fallen into the hands of a downey cove, who scarpered with the tin, and flummixt the building, and the lumber has now got the gigger dubbed. | |
| New Sprees of London 18: [E]xcellent order is kept here, a capital glee party chant in the back lumber, some good songs are sung, and a great variety of company frequent here. |
7. money; investment.
| Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: Nanty—nanty pallary; she's a plant on the swell to stag his lumber and cop his denarley. Stall away —hook it; nanty piping. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Two & Three 20 Apr. [synd. col.] After a sapp tries Wall Street once, he pulls in his head every time he pipes a guy looking for lumber. |
In compounds
(UK Und.) the landlord of a thieves’ meeting-place.
| New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: cove, lumber that keeps a house for the reception of thieves only. | |
| Dict. Sl. and Cant. | |
| Flash Dict. | |
| Modern Flash Dict. | |
| Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open. |
the flat from which a prostitute works .
| Und. Nights 204: Done up posh like a top-tart’s lumber room. | |
| Fings II i: I’ll get you a nice little lumber gaff in Shepherd’s Market. | |
| in Fashion July in Norman’s London (1969) 255: The girls have gone off the streets and now hang out of top-floor windows yelling at clients to mount the dark staircase to their ‘lumber gaffs’. | |
| Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 161: The high-spirited harlots invited me back to their lumber gaff for a nightcap. |
1. a drinking tavern frequented by criminals.
| Letters from the Dead to the Living in Works (1760) II 187: Jumbling the gods about, as if they were so many tapsters in a lumber-house. | |
| Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 395: Happening one Night into a Lumber House, not far from Billingsgate [...] he and his Comrades were sat down at a Table, with a Tankard of Beer. | |
| New and Improved Flash Dict. n.p.: Lumber-ken a house kept for the reception of rogues, swindlers, cheats, and thieves of all sorts. |
2. a house to which thieves bring stolen property after committing a crime.
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Lumber House. A house appropriated by thieves for the reception of their stolen property. |
a prison.
| Kendal Mercury 3 Apr. 6/2: Dick and Bill [...] who never sullied their fingers with a day’s labour [...] unless ’twere a month’s involuntary toil in some lumber ken (jail). |
In phrases
1. (orig. Aus., also in Lombard Street) jailed, in prison.
| Vocab. of the Flash Lang. in McLachlan (1964) 251: A man apprehended and sent to gaol is said to be lumbered, to be in lumber, or to be in Lombard-Street. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Case for Hearing viii. 125: My poor old dad was in and out of lumber all his life [OED]. |
2. (UK Und.) in pawn.
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 41/2: Somehow Tim’s ‘togs’ looked as fresh as if they hadn’t been ‘in lumber’. |
3. in trouble, often extended to in dead lumber.
| Owning Up (1974) 111: This was a real lumber [...] Luckily most of the time we were unconscious from lack of sleep. | |
| ‘The Second Time Around’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] You want to put yourself in lumber for the rest of your life that’s entirely up to you. I’m not saying nothing! | |
| DSUE (8th edn) 706: since ca. 1935. | |
| Awaydays 33: He’s chocker with them. Got us into all sorts of lumber. | |
| Outlaws (ms.) 22: One of them’s in a bit of lumber right now. He half took liberties with a young girl. |