cambrel

Noun

gambrel (plural gambrels)

1. The hind leg of a horse; the hock.
2. (dialectal, historical, obsolete) A bar, usually metal, with a central loop and a hook at each end, used to hang a carcass for butchering.
   • Within two hours the hog - killed, scalded, and scraped of its hair - was hanging pale from a big tree limb by a gambrel stick run through the tendons of its hind feet1997, Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain, London: Hodder and Stoughton, page 307
3. A kind of meathook shaped roughly like a horse's hind leg.

   Synonyms:

   gambrel hook

4. A gambrel roof.

See all 6 meanings of gambrel