dormer
Americannoun
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Also called dormer window. a vertical window in a projection built out from a sloping roof.
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the entire projecting structure.
noun
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of dormer
1585–95; < Middle French dormoir dormitory
Explanation
Almost like a picture in a pop-up book, a dormer is a peaked extension, with a window, that rises up from the roof of a house. The word dormer often refers to the window itself. A dormer, with roots in the French dormir (“to sleep”), often extends from an upstairs bedroom. The word has a sense of old-fashioned charm about it. Though you may occasionally still see a face peeking out from a dormer, the word brings to mind old stories such as the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, “The Snow Queen”: “They each had a little dormer window, and one only had to step over the gutter to get from one house to the other.”
Vocabulary lists containing dormer
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Built To Last: Architectural Parlance
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Architecture 101
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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.
Here’s a partial list of things that are not a roof: plumbing vent pipe, chimney, skylight, powered roof ventilator, attic or room dormer, and a wall that’s next to and rises above a roof.
From Seattle Times • Jun. 14, 2022
As their dormer bungalow falls into council tax band E, they won't be eligible for the £150 rebate being offered.
From BBC • Feb. 3, 2022
Tucked behind tall hedges and 12-foot gates, the 11,500-square-foot manor features dormer windows and Juliet balconies across the exterior.
From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 22, 2021
That something might be a chimney, a plumbing vent pipe, a powered attic fan, a turbine vent or a dormer, or it might be where two roof surfaces intersect.
From Washington Post • Jan. 8, 2019
There were two windows in the roof, one was blocked with boards, the other was a narrow dormer window on the north side.
From "A Farewell To Arms" by Ernest Hemingway
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.
