lumbering
Americannoun
adjective
-
awkward in movement
-
moving with a rumbling sound
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of lumbering
Explanation
Someone who's lumbering moves in a heavy, ungainly way. The big, lumbering players on a football team tend to play defensive positions like lineman. You might normally skip lightly down the street, but when you're carrying two big suitcases and wearing a heavy backpack, you'll be a lumbering figure slowly making your way along the sidewalk. Your toy poodle might move easily, while your giant 150-pound Mastiff is a lumbering, drooling companion. This adjective comes from the verb lumber, from the earlier lomere, which has a Scandinavian root.
Vocabulary lists containing lumbering
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This is a player who inherited the Tugboat moniker in his youth because he supposedly looked like a small, seafaring vessel while lumbering around the bases.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
“So I went in the studio and did it trying to sound like that guy,” Manilow recalled, stomping his foot to approximate a lumbering rock beat.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 22, 2026
It wasn’t until Tuesday, more than four weeks into the war, that Caine said it was safe enough to send lumbering B-52 bombers over Iranian territory.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 5, 2026
Costing A$136,000, the artwork represents a mythical megafauna, with the sculpture's designers inspired by an ancient marsupial ant-eater found in local caves that was "massive, lumbering and fascinating".
From BBC ● Mar. 25, 2026
It showed a white furry creature lumbering through the woods.
From "Case of the Sneaky Snowman: Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew, #5" by Carolyn Keene
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
