Other forms: clambered, clambering, clambers
To clamber is to climb awkwardly using hands and feet. Clamber over rocks, clambered up the bank, clamber down.
The awkwardness is the whole word — clambering is climbing without grace and usually without equipment, which is why it suits rocks, fences and children. It always takes a direction word: over, up, down. Note climb, from which it comes, and clamp, which is related.
1verbclamberTo climb awkwardly using hands and feet.
“The children clambered over the rocks to reach the pools.”
clamber is an awkward climbing.
Middle English clambren is related to climb, from a Germanic root. Clamp comes from a related gripping.
Middle English
clambren
English, today
clamber
Built from
From Middle English clambren, clameren, clemeren (“to climb, clamber; to crawl, creep”), then either:
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA