Meaning & use
timbered house
Last updated
Meanings
nouncountable
A house whose main structure is made of wooden beams, often visible on the outside.
Grammar: Countable: you can say a timbered house or two timbered houses.
Patterns
- a timbered house
- an old timbered house
- build a timbered house
They bought a lovely timbered house in the village.
The timbered house has dark wooden beams against white walls.
We stayed in a timbered house that was over three hundred years old.
nouncountable
A house decorated with exposed wooden beams on its inner or outer walls.
Grammar: Often used to describe a style rather than the actual construction.
Patterns
- a half-timbered house
- a timbered house style
The pub next door is a timbered house with low ceilings.
Many tourists photograph the timbered houses in the old town.
Word forms
| plural | timbered houses |
|---|
Common combinations
- half-timbered house
- A half-timbered house shows wooden beams filled with plaster or brick.
- old timbered house
- The old timbered house creaked in the wind.
- timbered house frame
- The timbered house frame was still solid after centuries.
- restore a timbered house
- They spent years trying to restore the timbered house.
Synonyms and how they differ
- half-timbered house
- More specific: it means the wooden frame is filled with other material, not just any wooden house.
- wooden house
- Broader and simpler; it can mean a house made mostly of wood, not necessarily with visible beams.
Word family
- timber noun
- Wood prepared for building.
- timbered adjective
- Made of or covered with timber.
Commonly confused: timbered house or log cabin?
timbered house vs log cabin
A log cabin is built from whole logs, while a timbered house uses a frame of cut beams.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'timbered house' correctly?
Choose one answer.
A timbered house has a wooden frame or visible wooden beams, so option 0 fits. Option 2 describes a log cabin, and options 1 and 3 contradict the meaning.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “timbered house”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.