Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

gable

UK/ˈɡeɪ.bəl/US/ˈɡeɪ.bəl/
nounC1Common in everyday speech and writing · #8,058 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: gables

A gable is the triangle of wall under the two slopes of a roof. A stone gable, the gable end, a gabled house.

It is the shape a pitched roof makes at the end of a building, and gable end is the standard phrase for that wall. Dutch gables are stepped or curved and were copied all along the east coast of England from trade with the Low Countries.

KDS444 · CC BY-SA 3.0

Definitions of gable

  1. 1noungableThe triangle of wall under the two slopes of a roof.C1

    “A small round window was set high in the gable of the old farmhouse.”

gable is a wall.

Where it comes from

Old French gable comes from Old Norse gafl. The northern English form gavel is related.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *gʰebʰ-

  2. Old Norse

    gafl

  3. Old French

    gable

  4. English, today

    gable

The southern English term gable probably came from Old French gable (compare modern French gâble), from Old Norse gafl. The northern form gavel is perhaps also akin to Old Norse gafl, masculine, of the same meaning (compare Swedish gavel, Danish gavl). See gafl for more etymology information.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Buildings & Architecture

Practise this word

gable in the wild

  • The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesthetic concerns.

    Gable

  • The term gable wall or gable end more commonly refers to the entire wall, including the gable and the wall below it.

    Gable

  • A bell-gable is similar, located at the apex of a gable or building end wall.

    Bell-cot

  • The contemporary French hood was rounded in outline and unlike the gable hood, less conservative, displaying the frontal part of the wearer's hair.

    Gable hood

  • The term "Dutch gable" is also used in America and Australasia to refer to a gablet roof.

    Dutch gable

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.