a communal structure for multiple dwelling and defensive purposes of certain agricultural Indians of the southwestern United States: built of adobe or stone, typically many-storied and terraced, the structures were often placed against cliff walls, with entry through the roof by ladder.
(initial capital letter) a member of a group of Indian peoples living in pueblo villages in New Mexico and Arizona since prehistoric times.
an Indian village.
(in Spanish America) a town or village.
(in the Philippines) a town or a township.
a communal village, built by certain Indians of the southwestern US and parts of Latin America, consisting of one or more flat-roofed stone or adobe houses
(in Spanish America) a village or town
(in the Philippines) a town or township
An Americanism dating back to 1800–10; from Colonial Spanish; Spanish: “town,” from Latin populus “community, people, nation”; cf. people ( def. )
If your home is in a pueblo, you probably live in the southwestern part of the United States, in a community of adobe houses. This noun of Spanish origin refers to a structure and institution of Native American origin: a communal village consisting of contiguous, multistory flat-roofed houses. Spanish explorers of the American Southwest were the first to use the word pueblo. The ultimate root, populus, is Latin and is related to population and people. Today, the state of New Mexico is home to the greatest number of pueblos still in use.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
While he recovered in the captured pueblo, Coronado sent scouting parties in search of the elusive Seven Cities.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
Hackman and Arakawa “were not interested in re-creating native pueblo architecture,” he added.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 19, 2026
He decided to leave his pueblo a few months ago.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 18, 2026
Each $20 bundle comes with eight sticker designs, including a pair of muscular arms flexed into the shape of “L.A.” and a green parrot graphic with the phrase “Solo el pueblo / Salva al pueblo.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 2025
She liked even less what awaited her at the entrance to the pueblo, where their guide had left them while he went inside for instructions.
From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
“In the beginning there was nothing but Spider Woman,” say Navajo and Pueblo elders.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
For a counternarrative, the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, founded by New Mexico’s 19 Pueblos, and Acoma Sky City, considered the longest continuously inhabited community in North America, offer Indigenous history on Indigenous terms.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 12, 2026
One of the boats had departed Pucallpa to the north on Sunday and was travelling towards the riverside communities of Caco Macaya, Curiaca del Caco, and Pueblo Nuevo del Caco, local media reports.
From BBC ● Dec. 1, 2025
But the order requires only that special regard be given to classical and traditional styles for federal buildings, defined broadly to include everything from Gothic to Pueblo Revival, and Spanish Colonial to Art Deco.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 26, 2025
Hoping to speed up matters, he hired a dozen Chamisaville Pueblo Indians to help with the digging.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
Losing faith in the reality of Quivira, Coronado sent most of his men back to the Tiwa pueblos.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
After Coronado recuperated, he marched east until the Spaniards encountered 12 Tiwa pueblos near present-day Albuquerque, N.M.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
This is a solo inspired by rituals that Graham observed in the pueblos of the American Southwest, specifically, the kachina figures that served as comic relief at religious ceremonies.
From New York Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
“Every single time that I go to Oaxaca and I go out of the city and go to the pueblos, you see more fields of agave replacing the trees,” he said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 15, 2024
A bird’s-eye view of ten or a dozen of the principal pueblos, then a landing for lunch in the valley of Malpais.
From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
