jacal
Americannoun
-
jacales,
plural
-
jacals
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of jacal
1830–40, < Mexican Spanish < Nahuatl xahcalli
Explanation
A jacal is a hut made of poles, mud, and a roof of branches or reeds. To see one, the best places to look are Mexico and the Southwestern United States. Jacales, while having their own unique style, use a building technique common all over the world for hundreds of years: wattle and daub. This type of structure is built by first erecting a frame, usually of wood, and then coating it with a substance that is malleable when wet but solid when dry, such as mud. The roof is typically made of reeds, straw, or woven branches. Jacales are notable for being made with long, thin poles as the primary frame.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He had laid aside his sixes—possibly in the jacal of the fair Pancha—and had forgotten them when the passing of the fairer Alvarita had enticed him to her trail.
From Heart of the West [Annotated] by Joseph E. Loewenstein
Ned Rutherford answered her knock on the door of the jacal.
From The Sheriff's Son by William MacLeod Raine
Architecturally of the rudest description—a kind among Mexicans especially styled jacal, or more generally rancho, the latter designation Anglicised or Americanised into ranche.
From The Lone Ranche by Mayne Reid
Over the jacal towered a great pecan tree; and a banana grew graciously beside it, and back of it was a huddle of feathery, waving canes.
From Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 by Various
Once more, before coming in sight of the solitary jacal, Uraga commands a halt.
From The Lone Ranche by Mayne Reid
In El Trotche, families of ten and twelve members crowd into the dingy, single-room, windowless jacales.
From Time Magazine Archive
They saw the women in their miserable huts, or jacales, built of a few sticks driven into the ground and covered with old blankets and thatches of straw.
From Mary's Rainbow by Mary Edward Feehan
Screaming women and children hurried out of the jacales, and darted here and there.
From The Missourian by Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
The jacales gave place to buildings of brick and stone, founded in many cases upon piles, and between them were streets and canals, giving access to the city from the lake.
From Mexico Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development by Martin Hume
A few of the houses are built of the usual adobe bricks; the major portion—there may be a dozen or so—are simply jacales, as the Mexican wattle-hut is termed.
From Mexico Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development by Martin Hume
In the next hour the red-tiled colored adobe hamlets of the small farmers began to give place to the jacals of the country, flimsy huts with sides of cane stalks and grass-thatched.
From The Mystery of The Barranca by Herman Whitaker
We always have a big stock of zacahuiste grass on hand for thatching jacals, plenty of limestone to burn for the lime, sand in abundance, and all we lack is the masons.
From A Texas Matchmaker by Andy Adams
It was almost morning when they arrived in sight of the jacals, or huts, which dotted the outskirts of the city.
From For the Liberty of Texas by Louis Meynelle
His eyes swept a circle and he saw little puffs of smoke coming from the roofs and windows of the jacals or Mexican huts on their side of the river.
From The Texan Scouts A Story of the Alamo and Goliad by Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander) Altsheler
Near noon we sighted the Seminole village, and shortly entered it, a close cluster of low jacals built of poles and mud.
From The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier by Edgar Beecher Bronson
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