adobe

[ uh-doh-bee ]
See synonyms for adobe on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. sun-dried brick made of clay and straw, in common use in countries having little rainfall.

  2. a yellow silt or clay, deposited by rivers, used to make bricks.

  1. a building constructed of adobe.

  2. a dark, heavy soil, containing clay.

Origin of adobe

1
1750–60; Americanism;<Spanish <Arabic al-ṭub the brick <Coptic to:o:be brick <Egyptian Demotic tb<Egyptian Hieroglyphic ḏbt

Words Nearby adobe

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use adobe in a sentence

  • He saw nothing of the red car, and presently the square walls and flat roof of an adobe house broke on his vision.

    Motor Matt's "Century" Run | Stanley R. Matthews
  • There was an adobe house on the flat, a corral, and other evidences of a rather extensive ranch.

    Motor Matt's "Century" Run | Stanley R. Matthews
  • The little adobe at the desert well leaped at them and fell away behind with the swiftness of thought.

    Motor Matt's "Century" Run | Stanley R. Matthews
  • Gila Bend had exasperated him because it was not the town it called itself, but a huddle of adobe huts.

    Cabin Fever | B. M. Bower
  • The ceilings of all the rooms were supported by unhewn beams, five or six inches thick, deeply inserted into the adobe walls.

    Overland | John William De Forest

British Dictionary definitions for adobe

adobe

/ (əˈdəʊbɪ) /


noun
    • a sun-dried brick used for building

    • (as modifier): an adobe house

  1. a building constructed of such bricks

  1. the clayey material from which such bricks are made

Origin of adobe

1
C19: from Spanish

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012