jacal
Americannoun
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:
Every sound about the house was hushed, and only the burro in the jacal down the hillside made known to the silent plain that he was still awake.
From With Hoops of Steel by Smith, Dan
Afraid lest the sea would swallow them up, the people fled to San Joaquin y Santa Ana for three months, where a temporary jacal church was erected.
From The Old Franciscan Missions Of California by James, George Wharton
The exigencies of our travel have bid us take up our abode in that hastily-constructed jacal, or hut built of branches and plastered outside with mud, such as the peon knows cunningly how to contrive.
From Mexico Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development by Hume, Martin
Dearest of Pancha’s girl-friends was Chona,—for so was shortened and softened her stately name, Ascencion,—daughter of a leñador whose jacal was near by, and with whom her father had long been on friendly terms.
From Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 by Various
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
In El Trotche, families of ten and twelve members crowd into the dingy, single-room, windowless jacales.
From Time Magazine Archive
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 Hume, Martin
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 Feehan, Mary Edward
Screaming women and children hurried out of the jacales, and darted here and there.
From The Missourian by Lyle, Eugene P. (Eugene Percy)
To-day the great pyramid casts its shadow toward a small village of jacales, upon a semi-arid plain.
From Mexico Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation, History, Political Conditions, Topography, Natural Resources, Industries and General Development by Hume, Martin
Fortunately the drifting smoke hid them partially, and they were almost upon the jacals before they were discovered.
From The Texan Scouts A Story of the Alamo and Goliad by Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
Behind it were some brush corrals and a few scattered mud jacals, in which lived the help.
From Heart of the Sunset by Beach, Rex Ellingwood
A great shout came from the Mexicans when they saw the daring Texans outside, and bullets from the jacals began to knock up grass and dust about them.
From The Texan Scouts A Story of the Alamo and Goliad by Altsheler, Joseph A. (Joseph Alexander)
Thus had sprung up around Las Palomas ranch a little Mexican community numbering about a dozen families, who lived in jacals close to the main ranch buildings.
From A Texas Matchmaker by Adams, Andy
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 Adams, Andy
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.
