Definition of "camber"

camber

/ˈkæm.bə/

noun
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.
  Quotations
  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 […], 1st US edition, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Publishing
  The track was stony with a grassy camber up the middle.
  2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 443
2. The slope of a curved road created to minimize the effect of centrifugal force.
  Quotations
  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
  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
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.
verb
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.