palapa
Americannoun
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a simple, thatched-roof dwelling, usually open on the sides.
-
any building resembling this, especially in a resort area, as a restaurant, beachhouse, or the like.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of palapa
Perhaps < Mexican Spanish: a kind of palm tree
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:
“When I started studying this, I didn’t know that tuba was a Filipino word, or that palapa was a Filipino word, and few others knew it,” Machuca says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 24, 2026
Enjoy lobsters, shrimp, freshly caught finfish and oysters under a seaside palapa with your feet in the sand.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 28, 2022
The rest: palm trees, picnic tables, umbrellas that look like the roof of a tropical palapa, bamboo mats to obscure the row of brick houses next door.
From New York Times ● Jul. 9, 2020
And we wanted to create the feeling of a seaside palapa, in Mexico City.
From Salon ● Jun. 13, 2019
The house was a palapa, the roof made of thatched palm.
From The New Yorker ● Jul. 28, 2016
They slept in their van or under palapas on the beach — never spending more than $2 a night — and relied on local fishermen and vendors to supply them with fresh fish and fruit.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 28, 2022
Along the coast — from seaside palapas to cliff-top restaurants to car rental lots — people whose livelihoods depend on tourists abruptly started to prepare for another lost summer.
From New York Times ● Jun. 11, 2021
“We were living on the beach under palapas and just this really beautiful setting, and we wanted to see if we could make the equipment with good carpenters,” Carter said during a recent videoconferencing chat.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 2021
Driftwood palapas line the main beach, and there’s a hillside spa, where treatments like hot-stone massage are done in an open-air pavilion.
From Time ● Sep. 25, 2017
Summit Surf is a legitimate Southern California-style surf shop, the likes of which have never been seen before in these here parts, complete with palapas and boards decking the ceilings.
From Time Magazine Archive
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.
