gambrel

See also: Gambrel

English

Etymology

Origin uncertain, perhaps from Old Northern French gamberel, from gambe (“leg”).

Noun

gambrel (plural gambrels)

  1. The hind leg of a horse.
  2. (chiefly historical and obsolete outside dialectal) A bar, usually metal, with a central loop and a hook at each end, used to hang a carcass for butchering.
  3. (US, architecture) A gambrel roof.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

gambrel (third-person singular simple present gambrels, present participle gambrelling or gambreling, simple past and past participle gambrelled or gambreled)

  1. To truss or hang up by means of a gambrel.
    • 1979, Cormac McCarthy, Suttree, Random House, p.9:
      They raised him so, gambreled up by the bones in his cheek.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Beaumont and Fletcher to this entry?)

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for gambrel in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams
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