chalet
Americannoun
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a herdsman's hut in the Swiss Alps.
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a kind of farmhouse, low and with wide eaves, common in Alpine regions.
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any cottage, house, ski lodge, etc., built in this style.
noun
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a type of wooden house of Swiss origin, typically low, with wide projecting eaves
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a similar house used esp as a ski lodge, garden house, etc
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of chalet
1810–20; < French, SwissF, equivalent to *chale shelter (cognate with Old Provençal cala cove 1 ) + -et -et
Explanation
A chalet is a style of house that's mainly found in the Swiss Alps. Most chalets are made of wood and have a very wide, heavy roof that slopes down. You might think of a chalet as a house you stay in during a ski vacation. Although chalets were originally the modest huts or cottages that Alpine herders lived in, over time the area became popular with skiers and vacationers, and chalet came to mean "mountainside holiday home." In Swiss-French, chalet means "herdsman's hut" or "Alpine cottage," from the Old French word chasel, "farmhouse."
Vocabulary lists containing chalet
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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.
Italian actor Sophia Loren had a chalet on Burgenstock mountain -- now the site of its Persian restaurant -- while queen Ingrid of Denmark was among the hotel's visitors.
From Barron's • Jun. 21, 2026
Italian actor Sophia Loren had a chalet on the Burgenstock -- now the site of its Persian restaurant -- while queen Ingrid of Denmark was among the hotel's visitors.
From Barron's • Jun. 16, 2026
The iconic French restaurant originally opened downtown in 1927 and relocated to its current chalet on Sunset Boulevard in 1962.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2026
He careens down the sheet of ice at 50 miles per hour, uses one of the final turns as a launchpad, flies out of the bob run and over a ski chalet to safety.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 8, 2026
It was one of those enormous mountain chalet getaway thingies, with huge windows and logs and stuff.
From "From Twinkle, with Love" by Sandhya Menon
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.
