the portion of the front or side of a building enclosed by or masking the end of a pitched roof.
a decorative member suggesting a gable, used especially in Gothic architecture.
Also called gable wall. a wall bearing a gable.
the triangular upper part of a wall between the sloping ends of a pitched roof ( gable roof )
a triangular ornamental feature in the form of a gable, esp as used over a door or window
the triangular wall on both ends of a gambrel roof
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English, from Old French (of Germanic origin); cognate with Old Norse gafl; compare Old English gafol, geafel “a fork”
A gable is the triangular part of a house's exterior wall that supports a pointed or peaked roof. Gothic-style houses are well known for their many gables. Houses and buildings with pitched roofs have front-facing or side-facing gables — or often, both. The shape and structure of these pointed gables help support a house's roof and give the building a particular architectural style. Nathaniel Hawthorne famously wrote about a building with this architectural feature in The House of the Seven Gables. Gable, originally an Old French word meaning "facade or front," is from the Old Norse gafl, "gable-end," or "gable."
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Among them are working drawings that prescribe the profile of every block of stone, each keyed to its exact place in the building, whether gable, tracery or buttress.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 18, 2026
It is thought that the carvings which came from Holy Trinity include a flower and two gable ends.
From BBC ● Apr. 8, 2023
That is where they built their current Colonial-style home with a gable roof and hardwood floors, three bedrooms and four full baths, according to local property records.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 13, 2023
Todd Brunner buys this home, with three upstairs bedrooms and a steep, gable roof, in the spring of 2003.
From Salon ● Nov. 17, 2022
I was checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable.
From "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan
We used to have Cary Grant and Clark Gable and all these people.
From Slate ● Jun. 11, 2026
Years later, co-star Shirley Jones said Sinatra actually quit to be with his wife, Ava Gardner, who had threatened to have an affair with Clark Gable.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 16, 2026
They added the walkers claimed they had left their money in a tent, which was left near Green Gable when they were rescued, but had agreed to send the £130 later.
From BBC ● Jan. 24, 2026
His office is full of memorabilia from his own projects mixed with photos of Old Hollywood, including one signed by George Burns and a portrait of Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe from “The Misfits.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 24, 2025
But the great example of this genre is It Happened One Night, with Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable, who famously dispensed with wearing an undershirt.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
These furry creatures are a familiar sight, known to roost in chimneys and in the gables of old churches.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 20, 2023
Successive Greek governments have lobbied for the return of the British Museum’s share of the works, which include statues from the Parthenon’s pediments - the all-marble building’s gables.
From Washington Times ● Dec. 3, 2022
Relatively few people are old enough to recall this unpretentious 1906 home, with charming third-floor gables and a second-floor bay window.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 3, 2022
Their furniture, with dynamic diagonal supports and imposing scale, had “the presence of small buildings, complete with gables, balustrades, capitals, columns and doors,” Ms. Veith and Ms. Harvey write.
From New York Times ● Sep. 2, 2021
Root drew a house of three stories with gables and a peaked roof, in red brick, buff sandstone, blue granite, and black slate; Burnham refined the drawings and guided construction.
From "The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson
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.
