''gazebo'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260915190735-00-⌔

gazebo - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

🖼️ ➺

Noun

gazebo (plural gazebos or gazeboes)

• A belvedere, either a type of summer-house or a roofed, detached porch -like structure, usually in a yard, park or lawn.
  • ✤ Ann dye Ned inn a gaze ay beau a pun a past Eye maid off any Sun (“and dined in a gazebo upon a pasty made of venison”)${}^{[1]}$¹
  • ✤ over which is a gazebo room 10 feet square²
  • ✤ She led them around the back of the yard, where a gray, tired-looking gazebo perched at the edge of the oak trees.³
• A dismountable shelter comprising a roof or awning supported by poles, and often having removable sides; a canopy tent
  • ✤ They started screwing aluminium rods together, like they were going to assemble a gazebo.⁴
  • ✤ Canopy tents go by a lot of names: screen houses, outdoor canopies, camping shelters, day tents, camping gazebos, patio shelters, portable shelters, and (our favorite) portable gazebos.⁵
  • ✤ It has been a tough year in hospitality, but brave souls continue to dream big and set out their stalls delivering tasty specialty food at keen prices from horseboxes, trucks and gazebos.⁶
• (Ireland, derogatory) a gaudy, incongruous, or flimsy structure or object
  • ✤ ‘I’ll thank ye tell me what they mean by that old gazabo on the top of the market-place,’ said she, in a burst of ridicule fit to have brought the old tower down.⁷
  • ✤ There was no garden attached to this tenement, nor was there even a good yard. People looked at it in passing by and called it a gazebo, a rattle-trap, a castle rack-rent.⁸
  • ✤ Sometimes a few middle-aged women came to see her, elderly spinsters whom she regarded as little girls. “Poor Cathy, she’s a great guy. She’s always making a show of herself”—and she might disconcertingly rap out at them, “What’s that gazebo you have on your head? What in reason prevailed on you to choose that color?”⁹
  • ✤ The critics, those lurking socialists in the Central Bank and the ESRI, those dangerous subversives, have dared not to believe and to criticise the figures on which the Minister rests the entire shaky gazebo of the direction of the economy for next year.¹⁰
  • ✤ When they were living in a house farther out from the city, and still very hard-up, the mother pledged a sideboard to tide them over the father’s illness. When the money was not available to redeem it, she consoled herself by saying: “It was only a bloody gazebo anyhow”.¹¹
  • ✤ I am not arguing against the previous amendment but it is clear that the gentleman who objected to the spike could not show that his interests would be economically damaged by this lunatic proposal to put this gazebo in O’Connell St.¹²

Etymology

Possibly from gaze + Latin future indicative conjugation-ending -bō, as in vidēbō (“I will see”), comparable perhaps to lavabo from Latin lavābō (“I will wash”); alternatively from Arabic قَصَبَة (qaṣaba, “fort, casbah”), itself possibly refashioned after the former.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA: /ɡəˈziːbəʊ/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
• (US) IPA: /ɡəˈziːboʊ/
  • ✤ Rhymes: -iːbəʊ

Printed 2026-09-15.

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Footnotes

1. 1734, Thomas Sheridan (Sr.), Letter from Dr. Sheridan to Dr. Swift; published in Deane Swift, editor, Letters Written by the late Jonathan Swift, D. D. ‎${}^{[2]}$, volume v, London: C. Bathurst et al., 1768, page 367: ↩

2. 1749, William Halfpenny, New and Compleat System of Architecture ‎${}^{[3]}$, London: John Brindley, page 7: ↩

3. 2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 89: ↩

4. 2018 May 15, Miriam Lord, “Repealing angels have something to hide at Leinster House”, in The Irish Times ‎${}^{[4]}$: ↩

5. 2024 April 30, Kalee Thompson, “The Best Canopy Tent for Camping and Picnics”, in Wirecutter ‎${}^{[5]}$, The New York Times: ↩

6. 2024 December 20, Corinna Hardgrave, “Our restaurant reviewer’s top takeaway picks of 2024”, in The Irish Times ‎${}^{[6]}$: ↩

7. 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, “In Which Amelia Invades the Low Countries”, in Vanity Fair ‎${}^{[7]}$, London: Bradbury and Evans, page 242: ↩

8. 1879, Sarah Atkinson, Mary Aikenhead: Her Life, Her Work, and Her Friends. ‎${}^{[8]}$, 1st edition, Dublin: M. H. Gill, page 191: ↩

9. 1917 April 21, Sylvia Lynd, “Journeys End”, in The Nation ‎${}^{[9]}$, volume 21, number 3, London, page 64: ↩

10. 1979 February 7, Michael O’Leary, “Financial Statement, Budget, 1979”, in Dáil Éireann debate ‎${}^{[10]}$, Oireachtas: ↩

11. 1996 June 28, Ann Redmond, “Joys and sorrows of city life”, in The Irish Times ‎${}^{[11]}$: ↩

12. 2000 May 11, Alan Dukes, “Planning and Development Bill, 1999 [Seanad]: Committee Stage (Resumed)”, in Select Committee on Environment and Local Government ‎${}^{[12]}$, Oireachtas: ↩