gambol
Americanverb (used without object)
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gambols,
present (3rd person singular)
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gamboled,
past participle, past
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gambolled,
past participle, past (especially British)
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gamboling,
present participle
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gambolling
present participle (especially British)
noun
verb
noun
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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gambolsimple
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gambolssimple
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have gamboledperfect
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have gambolledperfect
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has gamboledperfect
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has gambolledperfect
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am gambolingprogressive
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am gambollingprogressive
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are gambolingprogressive
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are gambollingprogressive
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is gambolingprogressive
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is gambollingprogressive
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have been gambolingperfect progressive
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have been gambollingperfect progressive
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has been gambolingperfect progressive
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has been gambollingperfect progressive
Past
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gamboledsimple
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gambolledsimple
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had gamboledperfect
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had gambolledperfect
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was gambolingprogressive
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was gambollingprogressive
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were gambolingprogressive
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were gambollingprogressive
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had been gambolingperfect progressive
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had been gambollingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gambol
1495–1505; earlier gambold, gambald, gamba(u)de, from Middle French gambade, variant of gambado 2 ( def. )
Explanation
To gambol is to run around playing excitedly. Although the word sounds like "gamble," when you gambol you never lose — you just have a great time! If you've ever sprinted around, jumping up and down, yelling "woo-hoo!," you already know how to gambol. Being really excited or even just slap-happy makes people gambol, and it's so energizing that animals do it too. Dogs gambol when they rise on two legs to greet each other, and squirrels gambol when they chase each other up and down trees. And when springtime comes after a long winter, it seems to make every living thing gambol with extra life.
Vocabulary lists containing gambol
Animal Farm
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Hot to Trot: Animal Ambulation
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A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Her puppies gambol around her, looking healthy and excited, but everyone else seems momentarily stunned by this story.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 30, 2023
"They are dying so that you can gambol in your redwood cabinets," he said while addressing the government.
From BBC ● May 5, 2023
Concerns about health, safety and inclusion are driving new trends in the annual gambol of ghouls and goblins.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 19, 2022
Selections from Debussy gambol and ruminate; Higdon’s “Secret and Glass Gardens” moves from a guarded interiority to brash, attention-grabbing declarations.
From New York Times ● Nov. 23, 2021
It was not a walk, but a glorious compound of dance, scamper, race, run; gallop, and gambol.
From The Cruise of the Snowbird A Story of Arctic Adventure by Gordon Stables
“Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? Your songs?”
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 14, 2022
Virginia Woolf described his masterpiece, “Hydriotaphia,” a survey of funerary customs, as “a cathedral where the organ goes plunging and soaring and indulging in vast and elephantine gambols of awful yet grotesque sublimity.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 17, 2020
What’s left is a shimmering sensibility that gambols freely in a new age.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 12, 2019
He utters it with a sort of charmed appreciation, as if he’s just remembered a unicorn that sometimes gambols on the South Lawn.
From The New Yorker ● Dec. 1, 2018
Though others roared at Bear’s antics, this young man took offense at Bear’s gambols and, with growing anger, made three attempts to snatch his mazer back.
From "Crispin: The Cross of Lead" by Avi
In the gaps between planes, Mr. Dyer photographed a small herd of horses that gamboled around the field, stopping occasionally to rub their noses on the hood of his truck.
From New York Times ● Feb. 18, 2022
Three dogs gamboled about as Kristof, whose curly hair is graying, spoke during the interview in a shed.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 27, 2022
They squawked and gamboled for the Chicken Shack dance cam.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2021
She gamboled along to the music on Cannon Green behind the iconic Nassau Hall and screeched with glee.
From Scientific American ● Jun. 14, 2021
Fate has gamboled with us—it has mocked us with a child's game.
From Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XX by Alexander Leighton
Just before the hour the new man took possession on the left and gambolled across halfway, swaying mesmerically inside two challenges before exploding into a drive which crashed in off the bar.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 9, 2017
"My family seem incredibly relaxed with me," he purred, as two cubs gambolled nearby.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 12, 2013
But having been thrown a bone by his manager, Torres gambolled exuberantly after it, impressing with his work rate and movement in and around the box.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 15, 2011
Kittens In Manhattan, two kittens gambolled around a gas jet, turned it on.
From Time Magazine Archive
In the ecstasy of that thought they gambolled round and round, they hurled themselves into the air in great leaps of excitement.
From "Animal Farm: A Fairy Story" by George Orwell
The difference is we can see the actors mugging and gamboling.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2023
There’s a gamboling quality in the dense first figures.
From New York Times ● Feb. 17, 2021
Up ahead I noticed a deer gamboling in the grass.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 8, 2020
And where earlier series featured grown humans gamboling in costume, the new one is made as puppet animation, the most magical of animated mediums.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2019
The Co-ordinator’s ruddy glass reflected, in miniature, the discreet gamboling of the flame, and, in even further miniature, it was reflected in each of his brooding pupils.
From "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov
And, if you dig the ship, check out the mother—the queen of the meanies, who rolls up late in the show, gambolling across salt flats toward a school bus full of innocent children.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 27, 2016
That’s a big ask, as you’ll know if you’ve ever defrosted a lamb chop and hoped to see it gambolling round the garden.
From The Guardian ● May 25, 2016
"Don't you think, George, that a few sheep, with lambs gambolling about, would make the fields look furnished?" one duchess suggested to her butler, who obediently provided the requisite livestock the following morning.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 25, 2013
Temmer, in fact, looks almost hysterical, as though a herd of puppies with bows on are gambolling straight towards her.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 12, 2013
I leaned back in the embrasure in a more comfortable position, so that I could enjoy more fully the aërial gambolling.
From "Dracula" by Bram Stoker
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
