camber

• cambre (chiefly obsolete)

From Old French cambre (“bent”), from Latin camurum, from camur (“arched”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈkæm.bə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkæm.bɚ/

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camber (uncountable)

1. A slight convexity, arching or curvature of a surface of a road, beam, roof, ship's deck etc., so that liquids will flow off the sides.
   • 2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 1, in The Line of Beauty […], 1st US edition, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN:

     From end to end, just behind the houses, ran the broad gravel walk, with its emphatic camber and its metal-edged gutters where a child's ball would come to rest and the first few plane leaves, dusty but still green, were already falling, since the summer had been so hot and rainless all through.

   • 2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 443:

     The track was stony with a grassy camber up the middle.

2. The slope of a curved road created to minimize the effect of centrifugal force.

   Synonym: crossfall

   • 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth:

     Again we were stricken of our palsy, slowed down, re-accelerated, and there, at last, were the few huts of a hamlet, with the lorry, lying at an angle in the road's camber, outside a tea-shop.

   • 2000, Bob Foster, Birdum or Bust!, Henley Beach, SA: Seaview Press, page 173:

     Even a small camber one way caused the whole outfit to list alarmingly.

3. (architecture) An upward concavity in the underside of a beam, girder, or lintel; also, a slight upward concavity in a straight arch.
4. (automotive) The alignment on the roll axis of the wheels of a road vehicle, where positive camber signifies that the wheels are closer together at the bottom than the top.
5. (aviation) The curvature of an airfoil.
6. (nautical) A small enclosed dock in which timber for masts (etc.) is kept to weather.

camber (third-person singular simple present cambers, present participle cambering, simple past and past participle cambered)

1. To curve upwards in the middle.
2. To adjust the camber of the wheels of a vehicle.

   Because he cambered the tires too much, he had less control on the turns.

• Cambre, cambre, cambré, cembra