A type of roof with two different slopes on each side, commonly seen on barns; also the hock joint of a horse's hind leg.
From Old French 'gambrel' (leg, especially the hind leg of a horse used in butchering), derived from 'gamba' (leg). The roof meaning likely derives from the bent-leg shape, popularized in 17th-century Dutch architecture and brought to America.
Gambrel roofs are genius architecture—the steep upper slope gives you full barn height while the gentle lower slope sheds rain efficiently! The word's journey from 'horse leg' to 'roof type' shows how builders borrowed animal anatomy terms to describe structural shapes.
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