Definition of "gambrel" [gam•brel]

• The hock of a horse or other animal. (noun)
• A frame used by butchers for hanging carcasses by the legs. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The next roof-form, built from early colonial days, and popular a century ago, was what was known as the gambrel roof."
• "Clicking on "gambrel" will take the visitor to a results list including all the photographs with the word "gambrel" in their description."
• "Flathead Indian squeezes the child's skull between two boards till it shapes itself into a kind of gambrel-roof against the rain, -- the readiest way, perhaps, of uniforming a tribe that wear no clothes."