gable

See also: Gable, gâble, and gabble

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈɡeɪ.bəl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪbəl

Etymology 1

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 (confer Swedish gavel, Danish gavl). See gafl for more etymology information.

A house with four gables visible.

More or less decorated central gables, as well as end-gables, are a prominent feature of some architectural styles such as Cape Dutch

Noun

gable (plural gables)

1. (architecture) The triangular area at the peak of an external wall adjacent to, and terminating, two sloped roof surfaces (pitches).
   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 2, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, OCLC 57395299, page 10:

     It was a queer sort of place—a gable-ended old house, one side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly.

   • 2002, Tony Pinchuck and Barbara McCrea, South Africa, →ISBN:

     Although there were important developments in the internal organization of Cape houses during this period, their most obvious element is the gable. End-gables were common in medieval northern European and particularly Dutch buildings, but central gables set into the long side of roofs were more unusual and became the quintessential feature of the Cape Dutch style.

Derived terms

• bell gable
• box gable
• Dutch gable
• gable end
• Gable Head
• gablelike
• gable roof
• gablet
• neck-gable

 

Translations

triangular area of wall

• Bulgarian: фронтон m (fronton)
• Catalan: gablet m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 山墙 (zh) (shānqiáng)

• Czech: štít (cs) m
• Danish: gavl c
• Dutch: gevelspits, puntgevel (nl) m
• Finnish: päätykolmio (fi)
• French: gâble (fr) m, pignon (fr) m
• Galician: outón m, capeal m, pinchón m, respigo m
• Georgian: ფრონტონი (pronṭoni)
• German: Giebel (de) m
• Greek: αέτωμα (el) n (aétoma)

  Ancient: ἀέτωμα n (aétōma)

• Hungarian: oromzat (hu)
• Italian: pignone (it) m
• Lao: ຈົ່ວ (chūa), ໜ້າຈົ່ວ (nā chūa)
• Latin: fastīgium n

• Macedonian: калкан m (kalkan)
• Northern Thai: ᩉ᩠ᨶ᩶ᩣᩉ᩠ᨶᩯᨷ (naa³ nɛɛp²)
• Norwegian: gavl m
• Occitan: capial m, gable m, pena (oc) f, penon m
• Plautdietsch: Jäwel n
• Polish: szczyt (pl) m
• Portuguese: empena f
• Romanian: fronton (ro) n
• Russian: щипе́ц (ru) m (ščipéc)
• Serbo-Croatian: zabat (sh) m
• Slovak: štít (sk) m, štít domu m
• Slovene: zatrep (sl) m
• Spanish: hastial (es) m, gablete (es) m, aguilón (es) m, frontón (es) m
• Swedish: gavel (sv)
• Thai: จั่ว (th) (jùua), หน้าจั่ว (th) (nâa-jùua)
• Turkish: kalkan duvarı, pencere kalkanı, kalkan (tr)
• Ukrainian: щипе́ць m (ščypécʹ)

See also

• pediment
• peaked roof
• pitched roof

Etymology 2

Noun

gable (plural gables)

1. (archaic) A cable.
   • 1577–83, George Chapman, The Works of George Chapman. Poems and minor translations.The Hymns of Homer: A Hymn to Apollo., Chatto and Windus 1875 [1]:

     First, striking sail, their tacklings then they loosed.
     And (with their gables stoop'd) their mast imposed
     Into the mast-room.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for gable in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)

Anagrams

• Gebal, bagel, gabel, galbe, gleba

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German

Verb

gable

1. inflection of gabeln:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. first/third-person singular subjunctive I
   3. singular imperative