dormer
Americannoun
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dormers
plural
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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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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:
So, days ago, when I looked at Angel’s text, I saw a photo of a completed dormer poking out of a steep slate roof on a century-old home.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 30, 2023
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
A steep roof and dormer windows accentuate the traditional style.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 4, 2020
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
On certain nights the moonlight had flooded through his dormer window and bathed everything in blue, beguiling shadows that prevented him from sleeping.
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
Plumbing vent pipes, dormers, turbine vents, chimneys, pot vents, powered attic ventilation fans, solar-array-panel brackets, etc., are all examples of things that are not a roof but found on roofs.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 12, 2024
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
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.
