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
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.
See Examples For:
The roof and an upstairs dormer window of the property were severely damaged by fire.
From BBC ● Dec. 14, 2025
“Hi, friend. It’s Angel. The dormer went really well,” she wrote.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 30, 2023
Here’s a partial list of things that are not a roof: plumbing vent pipe, chimney, skylights, powered roof ventilator, attic or room dormer, a wall that’s next to and rises above a roof.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 19, 2022
A steep roof and dormer windows accentuate the traditional style.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 4, 2020
When Ash woke up, Gwen was still asleep, and the early dawn light was sliding through the gaps in the shutters over the dormer window.
From "Ash" by Malinda Lo
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
The architectural towers sport cupolas, buttresses, dormers and booming cannons, and they’re decorated with floral garlands, war-trophy cartouches and jewel-toned colors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 13, 2022
It has a complex Queen Anne-style roof steeply pitched with dormers and a wide Italianate cornice supported by heavy brackets.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 5, 2021
Flashing is found near chimneys, dormers, skylight, plumbing vent pipes and any other vents that extend from the roof to expel air from your home.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 21, 2021
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.
