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In Middle French, the noun gambade referred to the frisky spring of a jumping horse. In the early 1500s, English speakers adopted the word as gambol as both a verb and a noun. (The noun means "a skipping or leaping about in play.") The English word is not restricted to horses, but rather can be used of any frolicsome creature. It is a word that suggests levity and spontaneity, and it tends to be used especially of the lively activity of children or animals engaged in active play.
Examples of gambol in a Sentence
lambs gamboling in the meadow
dog owners chat while their pooches gambol on the park's great lawn
Recent Examples on the Web
Okay, so the cow immediately finds its baby, and then there is a BABY COW gamboling in a field.
—
Alice Burton, Vulture, 23 Feb. 2026
Know Them By Their Fruits, for example, shows people and animals gamboling among fruit trees, and The Bermuda Triangle of Nacogdoches shows planes crashing into the ocean, in front of a plat of the landlocked town.
—Benjamin Lima
special Contributor, Dallas Morning News, 7 Feb. 2026
His nephew said that, for decades, his grandparents had kept alive a faint hope that maybe their hero son had just been captured and would one day come gamboling through the front door to the family’s Brookside home.
—Eric Adler, Kansas City Star, 10 Oct. 2025
An escaped pet zebra that went on the lam in Tennessee was captured Sunday after gamboling in the forest for more than a week.
—Theresa Braine, New York Daily News, 8 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for gambol
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Alice Burton, Vulture, 23 Feb. 2026
Know Them By Their Fruits, for example, shows people and animals gamboling among fruit trees, and The Bermuda Triangle of Nacogdoches shows planes crashing into the ocean, in front of a plat of the landlocked town.
—Benjamin Lima
special Contributor, Dallas Morning News, 7 Feb. 2026
His nephew said that, for decades, his grandparents had kept alive a faint hope that maybe their hero son had just been captured and would one day come gamboling through the front door to the family’s Brookside home.
—Eric Adler, Kansas City Star, 10 Oct. 2025
An escaped pet zebra that went on the lam in Tennessee was captured Sunday after gamboling in the forest for more than a week.
—Theresa Braine, New York Daily News, 8 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for gambol
Cite this Entry
“Gambol.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gambol. Accessed 12 Jun. 2026.
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