jacal

American  

[huh-kahl, hah-] / həˈkɑl, hɑ- /

noun

jacales, plural jacals plural

1. (in the southwestern U.S. and Mexico) a hut with a thatched roof and walls consisting of thin stakes driven into the ground close together and plastered with mud.

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Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

noun

• jacales
  plural
• jacals
  plural

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

A widow lived alone in the jacal, but she made them welcome to the best she had.

From A Man Four-Square by Raine, William MacLeod

Roy managed to rise and lean against the jacal.

From The Sheriff's Son by Raine, William MacLeod

Excepting the twins, Antonio and Antonia, no one that night slept in the jacal.

From Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 by Various

Half an hour later he dropped into the jacal of Meldrum.

From The Sheriff's Son by Raine, William MacLeod

On this altar the people put the food used at the dances, and many ceremonial objects are placed here or hung under the roof of the jacal.

From Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) A Record of Five Years' Exploration Among the Tribes of the Western Sierra Madre; In the Tierra Caliente of Tepic and Jalisco; and Among the Tarascos of Michoacan by Lumholtz, Carl