gargoyle

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A roof spout in the form of a grotesque or fantastic creature projecting from a gutter to carry rainwater clear of the wall.
  2. noun A grotesque ornamental figure or projection.
  3. noun A person of bizarre or grotesque appearance.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (1)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Ugly as a gargoyle, the little creature beside her hissed and whimpered. —  F ;SF; - vol 091 issue 04-05 - October-November 1996
  • He's a remarkably ugly man, with a distinct resemblance to a New College gargoyle -- big hands and feet, big eyes, a huge nose, and frizzy ginger hair that no dye nor wig could conceal or control -- as well as being a hopeless advocate, but he has an excellent memory for precedents and a fetish for minute detail. —  F ;SF; - vol 091 issue 02 - August 1996
  • The gargoyle, assigned to water-spouting duty, would be unlikely to chase him. —  The Source of Magic
  • The gargoyle was about his own height, but it was mostly face. —  The Source of Magic
  • It was a guy with a face like a gargoyle, a guy with a hundred wrecks on a hundred different tracks behind him. —  August, 1947
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Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English gargoile, from Old French gargole, gargouille, throat, waterspout.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. An archaic spelling, retained in the books; better gargoil, or, in more modern form, gargel, *gargle, from Middle English gargyle, gargyll, gargoyle, gargulye, from Old French gargoille, gargoulle, French gargouille, the weasand, throat, also the mouth of a spout (in the form of a serpent, or some other antic shape, also a gutter on a roof), = Spanish gárgola, a gargoyle; a modified form, equivalent to Middle Latin gurgulio (n-), a gargoyle, from Latin gurgulio(n-), the throat, gullet, a redupl. form, akin to gurges, a whirlpool (later English gorge, the throat), and to gula, the gullet (later English gullet). See gargle, gargle, garget, gorge, gullet.
 

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/ˈgɑrgɔɪl/
by American Heritage

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