camber

Definition

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.

Etymology

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

Example Sentences

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