gable

plural gables

1. architectureThe triangular area at the peak of an external wall adjacent to, and terminating, two sloped roof surfaces (pitches).

   It was a queer sort of place—a gable-ended old house, one side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly.

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 2, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 10

   2 more examples

   Although there were important developments in the internal organization of Cape houses during this period, their most obvious element is the gable. End-gables were common in medieval northern European and particularly Dutch buildings, but central gables set into the long side of roofs were more unusual and became the quintessential feature of the Cape Dutch style.

   2002, Tony Pinchuck, Barbara McCrea, South Africa, →ISBN

   Qionglin Village in Kinhu with its well-preserved ancestral halls, arches, and old Fujian-style houses with interesting gables is famous for having more shrines than any other village on Kinmen.

   2017 March, Piera Chen, Dinah Gardner, Lonely Planet Taiwan (Lonely Planet), 10th edition (Travel), Lonely Planet Publications Pty Ltd, →ISBN, →OCLC, page https://books.google.com/books?id=73fDDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT700&lpg=PT700

plural gables

1. obsoleteA cable.

   First, striking sail, their tacklings then they loosed. And (with their gables stoop'd) their mast imposed Into the mast-room.

   1577–83, George Chapman, The Works of George Chapman. Poems and minor translations.The Hymns of Homer: A Hymn to Apollo., Chatto and Windus 1875 https://archive.org/details/cu31924013128347/page/n367

1. A surname.