Word.ws English Dictionary

gambol

/ˈɡæm.bəl/

gambol verb: to move about playfully; to frolic.

Verb

gambol (third-person singular simple present gambols, present participle (US) gamboling or (UK) gambolling, simple past and past participle (US) gamboled or (UK) gambolled)

  1. (intransitive) To move about playfully; to frolic.
    • The lawn spread freely onward, as of old, over which, in sweet company, he had once gambolled.1835: William Gilmore Simms, The Partisan: A Romance of the Revolution, chapter XI, page 134 (Harper)
    • At our old pastimes in the hall
      ⁠We gambol’d, making vain pretence
      ⁠Of gladness, with an awful sense
      Of one mute Shadow watching all.1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXX”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 48
  2. (UK, West-Midlands) To do a forward roll.

Noun

gambol (plural gambols)

  1. An instance of running or skipping about playfully.
    • Heere hung those lipps, that I haue kist I know not how oft. VVhere be your Iibes now? Your Gambals? Your Songs? Your flashes of Merriment that were wont to set the Table on a Rore?c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
    • When his gambols were over, I looked at the paper, and, to speak the truth, found myself not a little puzzled at what my friend had depicted.1843, Edgar Allan Poe, The Gold Bug, page 10
  2. An instance of more general frisking or frolicking.
    • There was a delicious sensation of mingled security and awe with which I looked down, from my giddy height, on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth gambols.1819 June 23, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “The Voyage”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., number I, New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van Winkle, […], →OCLC, page 14
    • The season of salad days has been rightly called a season of folly—rightly, because nature wisely intended salad days for folly, and we are wise to regard them as a time for folly. But are we wise when, halting upon the crutches age finds convenient after the gambols of youth have lost their...1874 October, “Salad Days”, in The American Educational Monthly, page 462

gambol meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

gambol in Tamil

to gambol
விளையாடு viḷaiyāṭu

gambol in Urdu

چھلانگ, پھلانگ, اچھل کود, زقند, کد کڑے لگانا, کھیلنا کودنا

gambol in Bengali

উচ্ছ্বলভাবে লাফানো, নাচানো

gambol in Malayalam

തുള്ളിച്ചാടി നടക്കുക, ക്രീഡിക്കുക, നൃത്തം വയ്ക്കുക, തുള്ളുക
More languagesFewer languages
gambol in Kannada
ಕುಣಿದಾಡು, ನೆಗೆದಾಡು, ಜಿಗಿ, ಕುಪ್ಪಳಿಸು

Examples of gambol in a sentence

  • […] she remains near him to suckle him and teach him to choose the delicious grasses of the meadow, in which he gambols until he is grown.1907, Paul Lafargue, The rights of the horse, page 160:
  • And, in very truth, run and leap he did, gambolling wildly down the stretch of lawn outside the long window.1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 139:
  • In the ecstasy of that thought they gambolled round and round, they hurled themselves into great leaps of excitement.1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […]...
  • [The whales] quite enjoyed themselves gamboling freely among the waves in the sunshine.1948, F. H. Lyon, chapter 5, in Kon-Tiki, translation of original by Thor Heyerdahl, →ISBN, page 143:

All 12 example sentences with gambol

Forms of gambol

Verb
third-person singular presentgambols
present participle USgamboling
present participle UKgambolling
past participle USgamboled
past USgamboled
past participle UKgambolled
past UKgambolled
Noun
pluralgambols

Origin of gambol

From earlier gambolde, from Middle French gambade (modern gambade).

Words formed from gambol

Words that rhyme with gambol

Questions about gambol

What does gambol mean?
Gambol means to move about playfully; to frolic.
What is gambol in Tamil?
Gambol in Tamil is விளையாடு (viḷaiyāṭu). See Gambol meaning in Tamil.
How do you use gambol in a sentence?
[…] she remains near him to suckle him and teach him to choose the delicious grasses of the meadow, in which he gambols until he is grown.
What part of speech is gambol?
Gambol can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce gambol?
Gambol is pronounced /ˈɡæm.bəl/ (UK).
What is the past tense of gambol?
The past tense of gambol is gamboled.

Words near gambol in the dictionary

  1. gamboges
  2. gambogian
  3. gambogic
  4. gambogic acid
  5. gamboised
  6. gambol
  7. Gambold
  8. gamboled
  9. gamboling
  10. gambolings
  11. gambolled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gambol (page history and authors); விளையாடு (Tamil) (page history and authors); gambol (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gambol (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gambol (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gambol (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-gambol.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-gambol.wav.

Cite this entry: “gambol.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gambol. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.