chalet

noun

cha·​let sha-ˈlā 

ˈsha-(ˌ)lā

1

: a remote herdsman's hut in the Alps

2

a

: a Swiss dwelling with unconcealed structural members and a wide overhang at the front and sides

b

: a cottage or house in chalet style

Illustration of chalet

• chalet 2a

Synonyms

• bach [New Zealand]
• cabin
• camp
• cottage
• lodge

Examples of chalet in a Sentence

We stayed overnight at a ski chalet.

a mountain chalet for weekend getaways

Recent Examples on the Web

Related Articles The new chalet — expected to bow in November, in time for the winter season and in anticipation of the Winter Games next year — is to raise at the Socrepes location, where the Ria De Saco ski-slope lodge stood. —Martino Carrera, Footwear News, 13 June 2025

An interior designer, diploma in hand, opened a practice in the Alps, vowing to leave ski chalets in the dust. —Julie Lasky, New York Times, 30 Apr. 2025

The new film from Succession creator Jesse Armstrong, which premiered on HBO Saturday night, stars Schwartzman, Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef, and Cory Michael Smith as four billionaires who gather for a weekend getaway in a mountaintop chalet. —Maureen Lee Lenker, EW.com, 31 May 2025

And the fourth day was that scene in the chalet with the Fireflies and Joel on the floor. —Glenn Whipp, Los Angeles Times, 26 May 2025

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French, borrowed from Franco-Provençal of Switzerland (and adjacent Alpine regions of France and Italy) tsalẹ̀, tchalè "cabin in upland summer pastures used as a residence and for processing milk into butter and cheese, pasture in the vicinity of such a structure," from tsal-, tchal-, stem probably meaning "shelter" seen as an underived noun in Old Occitan cala "cove, inlet" (also in Spanish & Catalan, and as a loanword from Spanish in Italian & Portuguese, probably a borrowing from a western Mediterranean substratal language) + -ẹ̀, -è -et entry 1

Note: A display of the variants found in Franco-Provençal of Switzerland can be seen in Glossaire des patois de la Suisse romande (tome 3, p. 270). The word occurs as chaletus in Latin documents from present-day Vaud canton beginning in the fourteenth century. As chalet the word is first attested in metropolitan French in 1723; it received wide circulation through its use in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's novel Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse (1761).

First Known Use

1782, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for chalet

• airway
• allay
• archway
• array
• ashtray
• astray
• aue
• away
• ballet
• belay
• beltway
• beret

Kids Definition

chalet

noun

cha·​let sha-ˈlā 

ˈshal-ˌā

1

: a herdsman's hut in the Alps away from a town or village

2

a

: a Swiss dwelling with a roof that sticks far out past the walls

b

: a cottage built to look like a chalet