1. plural of gabelle; historical taxes or duties, especially on salt, levied in France before the Revolution
Usage: archaic; historical; chiefly used in reference to pre-revolutionary French taxation

Examples

• The gabelles on salt were among the most unpopular taxes in ancien régime France.
• Peasants resented the gabelles because they made essential goods like salt unaffordably expensive.
• The abolition of the gabelles was one of the early reforms demanded during the French Revolution.
• Historians study the gabelles as a key example of the inequitable tax system that preceded 1789.