Other forms: unlimbered
To unlimber is to get a gun ready for firing. Unlimber the guns, unlimbered and loaded, unlimber at the ridge.
The limber is the two-wheeled cart a field gun is towed behind, and unlimbering is uncoupling it and setting the gun to fire. How fast a crew could do it decided battles, and the word survives in military history and almost nowhere else.
1verbunlimberTo get a gun ready for firing.
“The gunners raced to unlimber the cannon as the enemy cavalry came into view.”
unlimber is a preparing.
From un- + limber.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA