dormer
Americannoun
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dormers
plural
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Also called dormer window. a vertical window in a projection built out from a sloping roof.
-
the entire projecting structure.
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of dormer
1585–95; < Middle French dormoir dormitory
Explanation
Almost like a picture in a pop-up book, a dormer is a peaked extension, with a window, that rises up from the roof of a house. The word dormer often refers to the window itself. A dormer, with roots in the French dormir (“to sleep”), often extends from an upstairs bedroom. The word has a sense of old-fashioned charm about it. Though you may occasionally still see a face peeking out from a dormer, the word brings to mind old stories such as the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, “The Snow Queen”: “They each had a little dormer window, and one only had to step over the gutter to get from one house to the other.”
Vocabulary lists containing dormer
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Architecture 101
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
So, days ago, when I looked at Angel’s text, I saw a photo of a completed dormer poking out of a steep slate roof on a century-old home.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 30, 2023
Stone, shutters and dormer windows bring colonial style to the exterior, and inside, the grand foyer showcases a Paul R. Williams trademark: the spiral staircase.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 11, 2022
Here’s a partial list of things that are not a roof: plumbing vent pipe, chimney, skylights, powered roof ventilator, attic or room dormer, a wall that’s next to and rises above a roof.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 19, 2022
As their dormer bungalow falls into council tax band E, they won't be eligible for the £150 rebate being offered.
From BBC ● Feb. 3, 2022
But Werner carries the receiver up to his attic dormer and studies it for hours.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Their dormers hadn’t been built yet; the lawns hardly had grass; the trees were plants held steady by sticks, a piece of paper attached by wire to the branches: “Apple tree.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 28, 2026
The architectural towers sport cupolas, buttresses, dormers and booming cannons, and they’re decorated with floral garlands, war-trophy cartouches and jewel-toned colors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 13, 2022
They can add copper strips at the top of all the ridges on the roofs and dormers that will arrest the aging process of the shingles.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 25, 2022
Cloaked in Victorian mining antiquity, buildings are bedecked with towers, turrets, dormers and wraparound porches, while the adjoining slopes are dotted with shaft holes, multihued rock tailing piles and tottering old mine shacks.
From New York Times ● Oct. 2, 2020
One year he’d painted the eaves and dormers, the clapboards and the deep-shaded summer porch, taking his time, finding pleasure.
From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
