Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to saunter.

1859

Matsell Vocabulum.

2. to court, to ‘chat up’; esp. with the intention of robbing the victim; spec. to take money for a bet, but thereafter not to place it with a bookmaker.

[1838		W. Holloway Dict. of Provincialisms 105/1: Lumber, Coarse, dirty, foolish talk].
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 150/1: She [...] volunteered to ‘kid’ him out, and after ‘lumbering’ him, pull his bag away.
1884		Sporting Gaz. (London) 2 Aug. 979/2: Draper said he was sorry, but the fact was not a penny was put on the horse; in other words, he had ‘lumbered.’ Mr. Tanner said the word ‘lumbering’ was a sporting slang word descriptive of a kind of ‘welshing’.
1888		‘’Arry on Marriage’ in Punch 29 Sept. 156/1: Who are yer gettin’ at? [...] Are you on the mug-lumbering lay, or has someone bin pulling your leg?
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 9 Mar. 3/5: One of the lumberers undertook to act as his guide, philosopher, and friend and started to lumber him on to a double.
1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 276: In picture shows the good daughter goes on the streets to save her mother’s life. Damn it. I couldn’t even do that. Wouldn’t know how to lumber a man if my own life depended on it. [...] ‘I’m damned if I could go up to a bloke in the street and say—.’.
1954		R. Fabian London After Dark 56: Near by is a hired bedroom – technically known as a ‘lumber’ – because it is to this room that she ‘lumbers’ her mugs.
1961		R.A. Norton Through Beatnik Eyeballs 76: Soon I start lumbering this witch.
1963		L.F. Freed Crime in S. Afr. 105: ‘I often “lumbered a Jamie”’ (decoyed men down dark streets where her accomplices beat and robbed her victim).
1966		J. Holledge Great Aust. Gamble 106: Only the small-timers or the mugs waited at the game to be ‘lumbered’.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxvi 4/1: lumber: Win a bird over and cart her off.
1981		(con. c.1900s) A. Harding in Samuel East End Und. 106: Biddy would have a go at anything, ‘lumbering’ a man and all the rest of it – i.e. luring him into some dark alley and then stripping him.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 67: Not that any of the pimply-fizzed, camera clicking able seamen had a hope [...] of lumbering a charlie in the Ronnie the Ripper class .

3. to steal; to rob.

1866		H.L. Williams N.-Y. After Dark 46: The same innocent gets himself kicked into the Wall Street gutter and the box ‘lumbered’ by some daring ‘gonnoff’.
1950		S.J. Baker in Sun. Herald (Sydney) 8 June 9/2: Most of these are small-time criminals. When they are pulled in by the police, often enough it is because they have ‘lumbered’ or ‘rolled’ (robbed) a victim.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 21: I couldn’t see Monty Rose, much less Morry Norris, the Pussyfence, going out on a screwing job just to make sure the right gear was lumbered.

4. to take, to escort.

1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 17 Apr. 1/1: A resident of Gunnedah was lumbered by a man known as Lynch up to the notorious Jack Wallan.
1922		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 2 Dec. 18/3: We lumbered him to the races next day, and ‘planted’ him be hind the stand.
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 23: A bloke drummed it for me and put me wide. Let her pick him up one night and she lumbered him home. And while he’s there he takes a butchers’.
1937		J. Curtis You’re in the Racket, Too 58: Where are you going to lumber him to-night? You don’t go back to his chat, do you?
1937		C. Drew ‘Growler’ in Bulletin 30 June 6/1: [A]s soon after tea as I could I lumbered him up to his room.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 85: Stick this geezer at the wheel. [...] And lumber the old lady as a hostage.
1965		G. Melly Owning Up (1974) 85: In Manchester there was never any trouble in finding a hotel where you could lumber back a scrubber.

5. (mainly Scot./Ulster) to fondle sexually, to have intercourse.

1938		G. Kersh Night and the City 36: Zoe lumbers for a fiver; them women lumber for a million. They ain’t no better than me.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 93: Lumber as much crumpet as he fancied. See their clocks when they lamped the drum.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 11: I had had plenty of tries at lumbering birds up my Hamsptead gaff.
1992		R.G. Barrett Davo’s Little Something 14: Any lumbering or screwing that had to be done all took place at Davo’s unit.

6. (Aus./S.Afr.) to beat up .

1981

C. Hope Separate Development 150: Hullo, mate, I says to myself, that effing nog’s seeing what he didn’t oughter. Cheeky swine! We can’t have that. Another second and I’d have lumbered him myself.