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gable
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
gable
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
end
▪ You run down the metal fire escape on the gable end of the building.
▪ Bonfires were got up at the gable ends.
▪ The gable end of the house looked down on us from about fifty metres away, windowless.
wall
▪ They support the gable wall and the walkways with a top fixing that accommodates movement of the roof structure in three planes.
▪ Fantastic painted foliage is appearing in streets and adorning gable walls, bringing the country into the city.
▪ Where this problem was found at high level on the aisle gable walls, it was owed to a poor constructional detail.
▪ The warehouses are built of stone and have wooden beam hoists on the gable walls.
▪ The gable wall revealed Roman bricks, the simple interior was soothing.
▪ The present house is old, with a west gable wall, 8 feet thick and built of solid stone.
▪ The gable wall structure consists of a series of fabricated steel mullions at 3.6m centres.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Attractive stone built houses in the centre of the town have decorated timber surfaces under the gables and half-hipped roofs.
▪ In the high front gable a plaque says 1857.
▪ Many of the houses were eighteenth century or earlier with steeply sloping red-tiled roofs and half-timbered gables painted white or pale green.
▪ Ridge, hip and gable tiles are commonly displaced by gales, causing accumulation of debris in gutters, valleys and junctions.
▪ The gable wall structure consists of a series of fabricated steel mullions at 3.6m centres.
▪ Then voices would cry in the falling sigh of wind around its gables.
▪ Timber fascias and barge-boards are standard, while many pitched roof garages feature timber-clad gable ends.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gable

Gable \Ga"ble\, n. A cable. [Archaic]
--Chapman.

Gable

Gable \Ga"ble\, n. [OE. gable, gabil, F. gable, fr. LL. gabalum front of a building, prob. of German or Scand. origin; cf. OHG. gibil, G. giebel gable, Icel. gafl, Goth. gibla pinnacle; perh. akin to Gr. ? head, and E. cephalic, or to G. gabel fork, AS. geafl, E. gaffle, L. gabalus a kind of gallows.] (Arch.)

  1. The vertical triangular portion of the end of a building, from the level of the cornice or eaves to the ridge of the roof. Also, a similar end when not triangular in shape, as of a gambrel roof and the like. Hence:

  2. The end wall of a building, as distinguished from the front or rear side.

  3. A decorative member having the shape of a triangular gable, such as that above a Gothic arch in a doorway.

    Bell gable. See under Bell.

    Gable roof, a double sloping roof which forms a gable at each end.

    Gable wall. Same as Gable (b) .

    Gable window, a window in a gable.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
gable

"end of a ridged roof cut off in a vertical plane, together with the wall from the level of the eaves to the apex," mid-14c., "a gable of a building; a facade," from Old French gable "facade, front, gable," from Old Norse gafl "gable, gable-end" (in north of England, the word probably is directly from Norse), according to Watkins, probably from Proto-Germanic *gablaz "top of a pitched roof" (cognates: Middle Dutch ghevel, Dutch gevel, Old High German gibil, German Giebel, Gothic gibla "gable"). This is traced to a PIE *ghebh-el- "head," which seems to have yielded words meaning both "fork" (such as Old English gafol, geafel, Old Saxon gafala, Dutch gaffel, Old High German gabala "pitchfork," German Gabel "fork;" Old Irish gabul "forked twig") and "head" (such as Old High German gibilla, Old Saxon gibillia "skull").\n\nPossibly the primitive meaning of the words may have been 'top', 'vertex'; this may have given rise to the sense of 'gable', and this latter to the sense of 'fork', a gable being originally formed by two pieces of timber crossed at the top supporting the end of the roof-tree."

[OED]

\nRelated: Gabled; gables; gable-end.
Wiktionary
gable

Etymology 1 n. (context architecture English) The triangular area of external wall adjacent to two meeting sloped roofs. Etymology 2

n. A cable.

Related phrases:
WordNet
gable

  1. n. the vertical triangular wall between the sloping ends of gable roof [syn: gable end, gable wall]

  2. United States film actor (1901-1960) [syn: Clark Gable, William Clark Gable]

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Gazetteer
Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Gable

A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesthetic concerns. A gable wall or gable end more commonly refers to the entire wall, including the gable and the wall below it.

A variation of the gable is a crow-stepped gable, which has a stairstep design to accomplish the sloping portion.

Gable ends of more recent buildings are often treated in the same way as the Classic pediment form. But unlike Classical structures, which operate through trabeation, the gable ends of many buildings are actually bearing-wall structures. Thus, the detailing can be ambiguous or misleading.

Gable style is also used in the design of fabric structures, with varying degree sloped roofs, dependent on how much snowfall is expected.

Sharp gable roofs are a characteristic of the Gothic and classical Greek styles of architecture.

The opposite or inverted form of a gable roof is a V-roof or butterfly roof.

Gable (surname)

Gable is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:

  • Ashley Gable, American screenwriter and producer
  • Bob Gable, American businessman and political candidate
  • Brian Gable, Canadian cartoonist
  • C. J. Gable, American football player
  • Chad Gable, American wrestler
  • Christopher Gable, English dancer and actor
  • Clark Gable, American actor
  • Clark James Gable, American actor
  • Dan Gable, American wrestler
  • Ellen Gable, American author
  • Eric Gable, American singer
  • Gerry Gable, British activist
  • Guitar Gable, American musician
  • Howard Gable, Australian record producer
  • Jeremy Gable, American playwright
  • John Allen Gable, American historian
  • June Gable, American actress
  • Mark Gable, member of the Choirboys
Gable (disambiguation)

A gable is the portion of a wall between the lines of a sloping roof.

Gable may also refer to:

People:

  • Gable (surname), a surname
  • Clark Gable a film actor
  • Dan Gable Olympic gold medalist, wrestler
  • Gable Garenamotse (born 1977), Botswana long jumper

Places:

  • Gable Field, Oklahoma, aka Doc Wadley Stadium
  • Gable Mansion, Woodland, California
  • Gable Mountain, Montana
  • Great Gable, English mountain
  • Green Gable, English fell

Other uses:

  • Gableboat, a traditional Norwegian fishing vessel
  • Gable hood, an English woman's headdress
  • Gable stone, an ornament in Dutch architecture
  • NRX-010 Gable, a weapon in the fictional television series After War Gundam X
  • an ethnic slur for a black person

See also:

  • Gables (disambiguation)
Related phrases:

Usage examples of "gable".

At the top of this street, on the side farthest from the cathedral, the vast west window of which could just be seen over the gables, chimneys, and stork-nests of the opposite houses, we stopped before the common door of one of the lofty old houses, against the posts of which were attached several affiches or notices of differing forms and material.

There is also a row of niches on the towers immediately above the ornamental gable of the aisle windows, and the upper part of each tower is covered with niches.

The windows of the aisle are delicately moulded with capitals to their shafts, and are ornamented with a crocketed gable, ogee-shaped and topped with a prominent finial rising just above the battlements of the aisle.

The aisle windows have ogee gables above them with finials, and immediately above them a band of panelling running right across the exterior buttresses.

In each I could hear the arthritic creaking of the attic rafters as the wind pushed at the gables and pounded on the roof and pried at the eaves.

Looking back, the high turrets and gables of the Boteler wing stood out dark and threatening against the starlit sky.

Ben, feeling that few spots combined so many advantages in the way of climbable trees, arched gates, half-a-dozen gables, and other charms suited to the taste of an aspiring youth who had been a flying Cupid at the age of seven.

The square ends of both choir and aisles are decorated with arches with crocketed gables above them.

Below this is a cusped arch in each light of the triforium with a crocketed gable ending in a finial above it.

On each side of these windows, in the space between the windows and the vaulting shafts, is plain stone panelling terminating in an arch with a crocketed gable above it, ending in a finial which reaches to about the level of the spring of the window arch.

Each division is filled with a geometrical pattern of two panels, each panel ending in a trefoil, with a circular trefoil in the head of each division, and a crocketed gable, terminating in a rich finial above it.

Windows rose in layers, dripping filagree crowns and gingerbread balconies, peeking out from dormers, or under gables.

Then from the gleaming roof-gaps of the house suddenly vomited forth a wonderous swarm of heteromerous living things--swallows, sparrows, martins, owls, bats, insects in visible multitudes, to hang for many minutes a noisy, gyring, spreading cloud over the black gables and chimneys.

Low and rambling, with creeper-covered walls built of mellow stone, it had mullioned windows, twisted barley-sugar chimneys and a hotchpotch of crooked roofs and gables.

Above them all, at a hus in the gable of a thatched cottage, stood the girl whom the Chevalier had recognised, anxiously watching the affray.