# What Is a Gambrel Roof?
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Meaning of Gambrel
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Horse hocks have a similar bend in them. Etymologically, gambrel seems to be a name for the shape of a piece of wood with a bend in it, like a capital Y without one of the top arms. This refers to the two-part slope of the roof. It is also the name for the hock of a horse, which has that shape, and for a piece of equipment used for butchering animals, which also has such a crook in it.
Brought by the Dutch or Germans?
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Dutch Colonial: Should we really call it German Colonial? Gambrel roofs are popularly thought to have to been brought to the United States by immigrants from Holland. Although Germany and Holland, or the Netherlands, now have different cultural identities, they are fairly recent political entities. In earlier centuries, what are now the established countries of Holland and Germany (among others) were part of a conglomerate of German states, whose peoples called themselves "Deutsch." Deutschland became the name of the German state; the name "Dutch" is derived from Deutsch, too. The English used to call these people "high Dutch" (Germans) or "low Dutch" (Netherlanders). In many cases, "Dutch" architecture in the US should really be called "Germanic" and was brought by a variety of Germanic peoples.
Gambrel, Mansard and Thatch
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The French used mansard roofs extensively; this is the Palace of Versailles. A gambrel roof only has two opposite sides with a bend in the roof. A roof that has all four sides gambrel-style is usually called a mansard roof, after the French architect Francois Mansart, 1598-1666, who used the style extensively. However, in Europe the term gambrel is less common, and "mansard" may be used to describe a roof with either two or four sides angled.
It is sometimes said that the shape of a gambrel roof may have been influenced by English thatched houses having a gambrel shape. Personally I find this claim odd since all the thatched houses I saw growing up in England were a regular gable shape with a steep pitch (to help rain run off).
Modern gambrel roofs
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Barns with gambrel roofs are still practical and popular. Gambrel roofs are still popular, for Colonial-revival-style houses and especially for barns. Gambrel roofs are very practical because they create a great deal of usable space in the roof, either for more rooms in a house, or for more feed and storage in a barn.
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