dormer

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French dormeor (“sleeping room, dormitory”),^{[2][3][4][5][6][7]} for which Merriam-Webster Unabridged, Collins and Dictionary.com give dormoir.^{[8][9][10][1]} The OED, Klein and others take it from Latin dormītōrium (“sleeping room”),^{[2][6][8][9][7]} from dormiō (“to sleep”);^[2][6] Barnhart and the Shorter Oxford instead form it within French from dormir (“to sleep”) and -eor, the suffix from Latin -ātor.^[11][4] According to Weekley, the Old French word was replaced by French dortoir.^[12][2] The obsolete sense "beam" is given by the OED and the Shorter Oxford as equivalent to dormant.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A window of a sleeping room: 1592, in C. Cony-Catcher's defence of conny-catching.^[2][11][8] The OED classes that record with the projecting vertical window in a sloping roof, originally the window of a dormitory or bedroom.^[2][13] Etymonline gives the 1590s and explains that such windows were mostly in upper bedrooms.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The English word appears first for the window, named after the room it lit, and only from 1605 for the sleeping room itself, in Chapman's All Fools, a use now historical.^[2][11][4] The Oxford Dictionary of English likewise starts with the window of a dormitory or bedroom.^[5] Barnhart records the upright window projecting from a sloping roof, or the projecting part of the roof, probably from 1703.^[11] From 1623 to 1825 dormer also meant a large beam,^[2][4] and the English Dialect Dictionary records that sense in East Anglia, with a quotation of 1758.^[14] Later compounds include dormer room (1951) and dormer bungalow (1977).^[13][4]

Timeline

• 1592 – a window of a sleeping room, in a sloping roof.^[2][11][8]
• 1605 – a sleeping chamber, a dormitory.^[2][11]
• 1623 – a large beam (obsolete by 1825).^[2]
• c. 1640 – figuratively, a resting place or repository.^[2]
• 1703 – an upright window projecting from a sloping roof, or the part of the roof that holds it.^[11]
• 1951 – dormer room, a room in the roof-space lit by such a window.^[13]
• 1977 – dormer bungalow.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. An upright window set in a structure that projects from a sloping roof; also called a dormer window: Each attic bedroom had one small dormer facing the sea.^[9][8][2]
2. The roofed, usually gabled projection that holds such a window.^[9][8]
3. (historical) A sleeping chamber; a dormitory.^[2][4][8]
4. (obsolete, 1623–1825) A large beam.^[2][4]

Word family

• dormered
• dormer window

Related words

• dormitory
• dormant

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
7. ^ a b The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers
8. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c d Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)