camber

alternative obsolete cambre

1. uncountableA 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.

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

   2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 443

   1 more example

   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.

   2004, Alan Hollinghurst, chapter 1, in The Line of Beauty […], London: Picador, →ISBN

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

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

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

   1 more example

   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.

   1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth

   Synonyms: crossfall

3. uncountablearchitectureAn upward concavity in the underside of a beam, girder, or lintel; also, a slight upward concavity in a straight arch.
4. uncountableautomotiveThe 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. uncountableaeronauticsThe curvature of an airfoil.
6. uncountablenauticalA small enclosed dock in which timber for masts (etc.) is kept to weather.

present singular third person cambers · participle present cambering · participle past cambered · past cambered · alternative obsolete cambre

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.

1. A coastal village and civil parish in Rother district, East Sussex, England (OS grid ref TQ9618).