late-14c., draie, "strong wheeled or wheel-less cart," from Old English dræge or some other noun derivative from dragan "to draw" and originally meaning a cart without wheels that has to be "dragged" (compare Old Norse draga "timber dragged behind a horse;" Middle Low German drage, Middle High German trage "a litter"); see drag (v.). Modern sense of "low, strong cart with stout wheels and without sides, used for carrying heavy loads" is from 1580s.
c. 1200, "incapable of producing its kind" (of female animals, plants), from Old French baraigne, baraing "sterile, barren" (12c.), perhaps originally brahain, of obscure derivation, perhaps from a Germanic language. Use in reference to males is rare. Of land, "producing little or no vegetation," late 14c.
As a noun, mid-13c., "a barren woman;" later "tract of more or less unproductive land."
BARRENS. Elevated lands, or plains upon which grow small trees, but never timber. [Bartlett, "Dictionary of Americanisms," 1848]
mid-14c., "real, ordinary; earthly, drawn from the material world" (contrasted with spiritual, mental, supernatural), a term in scholastic philosophy and theology, from Old French material, materiel (14c.) and directly from Late Latin materialis (adj.) "of or belonging to matter," from Latin materia "matter, stuff, wood, timber" (see matter (n.)).
From late 14c. as "made of matter, having material existence; material, physical, substantial." From late 15c. as "important, relevant, necessary, pertaining to the matter or subject;" in the law of evidence, "of legal significance to the cause" (1580s).
Old English dimm "dark, gloomy, obscure; not clearly seen, indistinct," from Proto-Germanic *dimbaz (source also of Old Norse dimmr, Old Frisian dim, Old High German timber "dark, black, somber"). Not known outside Germanic.
Of eyes, "not seeing clearly," early 13c. Of sound from early 14c.; of light, "not bright, faintly luminous," from early 14c. Modern slang sense of "dull of apprehension, stupid" is from 1892; the sense of "dull-witted" also was in Middle English (mid-13c.). Related: Dimly; dimness.
also dead-wood, 1887 in the figurative sense of "useless person or thing," originally American English, from dead (adj.) + wood (n.). The meaning "wood dead upon a tree" is by 1803. Dead wood in a forest is useful as firewood; perhaps the reference here is to the dried up parts of plants grown for commercial production of flowers or fruit.
The term also meant, in ship-building, "timber built up at either end of the keel to afford firm fastening for the cant timbers" (18c.) and, in bowls, "pins which have been knocked down and block those still standing" (1858).
late 15c., "strap passing under the jaw of a horse" (attached to the bit of the bridle and used to restrain the animal), from Old French courbe "curb on a horse" (12c.), from Latin curvus, from curvare "to bend," from PIE root *sker- (2) "to turn, bend." The same word was used late 14c. in the sense of "a hump," and in Anglo-Latin as "curved or arched piece of timber" (late 13c.).
Meaning "enclosed framework" is from 1510s, probably originally with a notion of "curved;" extended to margins of garden beds by 1731; to "margin of joined, upright stones between a sidewalk and road" by 1791 (sometimes in this sense spelled kerb). Figurative sense of "a check, a restraint, that which holds back" is from 1610s.
"a timber of considerable size set upright," from Old English post "pillar, doorpost," and from Old French post "post, upright beam," both from Latin postis "door, post, doorpost," in Medieval Latin "a beam, rod, pole," which is perhaps from Vulgar Latin *por- "forth," a variant of pro- (see pro-) + stare "to stand" (from PIE root *sta- "to stand, make or be firm").
Similar compounds are Sanskrit prstham "back, roof, peak," Avestan parshti "back," Greek pastas "porch in front of a house, colonnade," Middle High German virst "ridgepole," Lithuanian pirštas, Old Church Slavonic pristu "finger" (PIE *por-st-i-).
Later also of metal. As a type of hardness, lifelessness, deafness by early 15c.
