Other forms: sables
A sable is a small dark fur-bearing animal, or the colour black. Sable fur, a sable coat, sable and gold.
The fur was among the most valuable in the world and the Russian trade in it drove the eastward expansion across Siberia. In heraldry sable means black, and the artist's finest brushes are still made from the tail hair. It is a relative of the marten.
1nounsableA small dark fur-bearing animal.
“A sable darted between the pine trees, its dark fur shining against the snow.”
2nouncolourThe colour black, in heraldry.
“The knight's shield showed a silver lion on a field of sable.”
sable is an animal, or a colour.
SABLE → hanging in the STABLE
The dark fur hangs in the stable, black as the door behind it.
hooks ontostable
Old French sable comes through Medieval Latin from a Slavic word for the animal. The heraldic colour is named from the fur.
Middle Low German
sabel
Medieval Latin
sabelum
Old French
sable
Middle English
sable
English, today
sable
Built from
Attested since 1275, from Middle English sable, from Old French sable and martre sable (“sable marten”), in reference to the animal or its fur; from Medieval Latin sabelum, from Middle Low German sabel (compare Middle Dutch sabel, Middle High German zobel, whence {{cog|de|
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire