Etymology: < Old French sable, saible sable fur, also quasi-adjective in martre sable (‘sable marten’) as the name of the animal and its fur, medieval Latin sabelum , sabellum sable fur, Icelandic safal , safali sable (the animal), sable-fur, Dutch sabel sable-fur. The Old French word was probably adopted < Slavonic: compare Russian sobol′ , Polish, Czech sobol (whence German zobel , Danish, Swedish sobel ), Lithuanian sabalas , Hungarian czoboly , the sable. See also zibeline n., which represents a Romanic derivative from the same Slavonic word. The rare 17th cent. form cebal is of obscure origin; it may possibly be a shortening of one of the Romanic forms cited s.v. zibeline n.

Etymology: < French sable sable (as heraldic term: in Godefroy cited only from 15th cent.), whence Spanish sable , Portuguese sable , Middle Dutch, Dutch sabel . The identity of the word with sable n.¹ is commonly assumed, though some difficulty is presented by the fact that the fur of the sable, as now known, is not black but brown.Some have conjectured that it may have been customary to dye sable-fur black (as is now often done with sealskin), perhaps in order to heighten its contrast with ermine, with which it was often worn. The development by which the heraldic term has become a general (poetical or rhetorical) synonym for ‘black’ is peculiar to English.

Etymology: Probably < Dutch or early modern German sabel (later German säbel ): see sabre n.

Etymology: < Portuguese savel.

Etymology: < sable adj.