Sc. Also 6 cabir, kabar, kebber, kebbre. [a. Gaelic cabar pole, spar, rafter = Irish cabar lath, Welsh ceibr beam, rafter, Corn. ceber, keber rafter, beam, Breton 9th c. in Luxemb. fol. ‘tignæ, cepriou.’]
1. A pole, or spar, usually consisting of the stem of a young pine or fir-tree, used in house-carpentry, scaffolding, etc.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, XII. v. 186. His schaft that was als rude and squair, As it had beyn a cabyr or a spar.
1718. A. Ramsay, Christ’s Kirk, III. xviii. They frae a barn a kabar raught.
1756. Mrs. Calderwood, Jrnl. (1884), 162. To every plant they give a pole, which is a tree, like the smallest sort of what we call cabers.
1861. G. H. K., Vacat. Tour, 164. They … hung them [trouts] on the cabers of their wigwams.
2. esp. as used in the Highland athletic exercise of throwing or tossing the caber.
1862. Standard, 16 July, 3/1. We would say with Lord Dundreary, ‘No fellow can understand tossing the caber.’
1872. Daily News, 26 July, 6/2. Some notice must be taken of the Caber Throwing, that being a demonstration of physical vigour and muscular power peculiar to the Highlands of Scotland.
1881. Boys’ Newspaper, 6 July. The caber is simply a roughly hewn pine trunk denuded of its branches…. To toss this skilfully the athlete poises the smaller end against his breast, in an upright position, and, suddenly raising it by sheer force to a level with his shoulder, throws it from him in such a manner that the thick end touches the ground first, and the trunk falls away from him.
