Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To climb with difficulty, especially on all fours; scramble.
- n. A difficult, awkward climb.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To climb, especially with difficulty or by using both hands and feet, as in ascending a steep mountain: often used figuratively.
- To ascend by climbing; climb with difficulty.
- n. The act of clambering or climbing with difficulty.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To climb with difficulty, or with hands and feet; -- also used figuratively.
- n. The act of clambering.
- v. To ascend by climbing with difficulty.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an awkward climb
- v. climb awkwardly, as if by scrambling
Etymologies
- Middle English clambren, probably frequentative of climben, to climb; see climb. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The clamber was a perilous one, especially as the heavy rain rendered the iron pipe more than usually slippery.”
“Anyone who uses the word "clamber," and correctly no less, in a cycling blog has earned the right to call himself a snob.”
“The girls clamber from their seats, toward the open windows, as Seena tries unsuccessfully to open the window nearest her.”
“Each time a new position requires me to create a space between myself and the floor, he comes whizzing by, looking at me while smiling and trying to slide underneath my torso or clamber over my legs.”
“Missiles launched from catapults in the hills above, javelins thrown by Persian soldiers, and arrows from thousands of archers fell like rain on the Macedonians as they tried to clamber up the snow-covered cliffs to get at the defenders.”
“With his skull "shot to atoms", Harry manages to clamber over the side and tries to swim ashore.”
The Guardian: Historic walking trails: smugglers' routes in Cornwall
“Just then the white-domed heads of two men in coveralls appeared over the rim of the hollow, and the others stepped back to let them clamber out.”
“After a day of rest on middle Sunday another Wimbledon eccentricity, all 32 men and women remaining in the singles draws clamber back to the lawns, anxious and refreshed, to fight for a spot in the quarterfinals.”
The Wall Street Journal: On Wimbledon's 'Second Monday,' Everyone in the Draw Has to Play
“We are the reluctant inheritors of a tradition that once corralled hundreds of thousands of young men into a place so that they might selflessly clamber out of trench lines to certain death.”
“The attempt was well intended, but before he could clamber on board he was wet to the waist.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘clamber’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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GRE 2014
abate, abdicate, abase, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abjure, abortive, abound, abrasive, abreast, abridge and 1577 more...
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Figuratively
Words with definitions containing "figuratively."
spore, plunge, fulminate, rasp, hinge, niche, breathe, approach, hammer, rain, butcher, dazzle and 132 more...
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11
ballast, buoyant, clamber, detach, eerie, fathom, pique, probe, realize, rupture, sphere, submerge and 3 more...
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man gre
abase, abeyance, abreast, abscission, abscond, abyss, accede, accretion, acerbic, acidulous, acumen, adulterate and 483 more...
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vocab 10
unscathed, ultimate, tedious, submerge, sphere, rupture, realize, probe, pique, fathom, eerie, detach and 3 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aberration, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate and 1908 more...
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Allographic Homophones
Words that can be pronounced identically but are spelled differently. I've started with unusual or extensive sets. In some of these sets, no one speaker would pronounce them all the same. I've trie...
air, are, ayr, ayre, e'er, ere, err, eyre, heir, apatite, appetite, picnic and 226 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Revised GRE Wordlist_2013
Vocabulary building for my quest of GRE 2013
ephemeral, esoteric, rhetoric, censure, egregious, pittance, dupe, mulct, paucity, alacrity, maintain, laconic and 997 more...
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1st cut
abeyance, abscission, abyss, accretion, acidulous, adulterate, adumbrate, aerie, ameliorate, anachoronistic, analgesia, anodyne and 315 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Joshee Word List
gash, engross, entail, stoke, ode, vacillate, aspersion, asperity, clan, kith, prospect, nag and 229 more...
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Inner B
Words with the letter b within the word, not just as the initial or last letter.
remember, maybe, able, unable, nimble, cable, reusable, thimble, cymbal, capable, tremble, enable and 143 more...
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Rita's List of Words
preliminary, rudimentary, stance, conduit, locale, implicit, vicissitude, empirical, repository, apophthegm, apothegm, invariable and 431 more...
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Wrapped up in books
I'm reading books. And there are words and phrases I come upon for the first time, or that are used with usages that are new to me.
So, this is just a plain list of those words. Don't expect ...hobble, mackerel, crone, cavort, hoyden, rheumy, scatter, hiss, recoil, trundle, shatter, flaxen and 200 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for clamber.
rolig Ah, Jeffrey! Dec 31, 2007
brtom For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer. (from Christopher Smart's Jubilate Agno) Dec 30, 2007