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
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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
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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:
A simple dormer addition may be enough to expand the second floor you already have, and is more straightforward than a partial or full second-story addition, because the scope of the project is much smaller.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 24, 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
He recollected that on a good day in winter, when the maple trees stood bare, he could look through his dormer window out beyond the trees and see the green salt water to the southwest.
From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson
Their dormers hadn’t been built yet; the lawns hardly had grass; the trees were plants held steady by sticks, a piece of paper attached by wire to the branches: “Apple tree.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
A few have Asian-inspired elements like flared or upturned columns or dormers, while others incorporate floral motifs and stained glass.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2025
Sixteen months earlier on our first call, Angel told me she had gone to the library to read about framing and building dormers.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 30, 2023
A new insulated roof and dormers expanded the head space.
From New York Times ● Apr. 21, 2022
Nothing of the houses but the roof sticks out above the snow, and the winter-doors may be set under the eaves or in the roof itself, like dormers.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
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.
