an Old World weasellike mammal, Mustela zibellina, of cold regions in Eurasia and the North Pacific Islands, valued for its dark brown fur.
a marten, especially Mustela americana.
the fur of the sable.
the color black, often being one of the heraldic colors.
sables, mourning garments.
of the heraldic color sable.
made of the fur or hair of the sable.
very dark; black.
a marten, Martes zibellina, of N Asian forests, with dark brown luxuriant fur
the highly valued fur of this animal
( as modifier )
a sable coat
the brown, slightly less valuable fur of the American marten, Martes americana
the colour of sable fur: a dark brown to yellowish-brown colour
of the colour of sable fur
black; dark; gloomy
(usually postpositive) heraldry of the colour black
a cape at the S tip of Florida: the southernmost point of continental US
the southernmost point of Nova Scotia, Canada
First recorded in 1275–1325; Middle English sable, saibel, sabil(le) “a sable, pelt of a sable; (the color) black,” from Old French sable, saibile “a sable, sable fur” ( Medieval Latin sabel(l)um “sable fur”), from Middle Low German sabel (compare late Old High German zobel ), from Slavic or Baltic; compare Russian sóbol', Polish soból, Czech sobol, Lithuanian sàbalas; further origin uncertain
Sable is a fluffy little animal known for its silky dark brown fur. It’s native to Japan, Siberia, and other parts of northern Asia. You may meet up with a sable in a zoo or as somebody's expensive coat. Sable is a kind of marten — the same family as skunks, wolverines, and minks. The scientific name is Martes zibellina. The word sable, from Russian, likely came into Western European languages in the Middle Ages, when trappers traveled far and wide in search of furry creatures whose skins were worthy to warm the backs of emperors, kings, queens, and Byzantine priests. Sable can also mean "dark black," or it can refer to the hairs of an artist's paintbrush.
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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.
“How beautiful she is in her shining raiment,” he rhapsodizes, “her birch-bark body, her sable bodice, her white cravat, her goffered ruff.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026
In contrast, some parts of the tarantula feel almost like sable fur.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2025
The four largest herbivores wearing GPS collars -- nyala, kudu, sable and elephant -- had no fatalities.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 17, 2023
One of the ferrets is described as a sable polecat ferret, and the other is a silver ferret.
From BBC ● Nov. 1, 2023
I also take a wedge of the soft sable for the freckles.
From "The Belles" by Dhonielle Clayton
The new lawsuit, filed in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, asks the court to strike down what it called an “unlawful” permit issued last month to Sable Offshore Corp from the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
The Trump administration also used the Defense Production Act, a Cold War-era law allowing presidents to speed up the flow of goods in emergencies, to allow oil producer Sable Offshore to restart an offshore pipeline.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 11, 2026
Sable finds people are often more comfortable committing funds to long-term growth once they know their bases are covered with more stable investments.
From MarketWatch ● May 8, 2026
Sandra Sable, a financial planner who specializes in high-net-worth women clients in Boston, says when new clients come to her, they are often holding far too much of their money in cash.
From MarketWatch ● May 8, 2026
The Watch now had garrisons at Icemark, Long Barrow, Sable Hall, Greyguard, and Deep Lake, all badly undermanned, but ten castles still stood empty and abandoned.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
That means baking British-style biscuits — lemon sugar sables, almond orange pillows and ginger molasses cookies — plus slabs of chocolate cake and fluffy ricotta cake topped with her own strawberry compote.
From Seattle Times ● Aug. 3, 2022
It contains nearly 20 percent of the world’s unfrozen fresh water and is so abundant in wildlife — bears, foxes, sables, rare and endangered freshwater seals — that Unesco calls it “the Galápagos of Russia.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 8, 2019
The station had its drawers and checklists: there were sorbets to spin and sables to bake off, pears to poach and oranges to carve into supremes.
From Salon ● Jun. 11, 2018
Pursuing sables and other fur-bearing animals across the vast cold forests of northern Asia, Russian merchants reached the Pacific in the early seventeenth century, during the early decades of English settlement in Virginia.
From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018
The sables, martens, minks and otters are poor in quality, and all of a very yellow colour and they are generally dyed for the cheap trade.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 11, Slice 3 "Frost" to "Fyzabad" by Various
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.
