a communal structure for multiple dwelling and defensive purposes of certain agricultural Indians of the southwestern United States: built of adobe or stone, typically many-storied and terraced, the structures were often placed against cliff walls, with entry through the roof by ladder.
(initial capital letter) a member of a group of Indian peoples living in pueblo villages in New Mexico and Arizona since prehistoric times.
an Indian village.
(in Spanish America) a town or village.
(in the Philippines) a town or a township.
a communal village, built by certain Indians of the southwestern US and parts of Latin America, consisting of one or more flat-roofed stone or adobe houses
(in Spanish America) a village or town
(in the Philippines) a town or township
An Americanism dating back to 1800–10; from Colonial Spanish; Spanish: “town,” from Latin populus “community, people, nation”; cf. people ( def. )
If your home is in a pueblo, you probably live in the southwestern part of the United States, in a community of adobe houses. This noun of Spanish origin refers to a structure and institution of Native American origin: a communal village consisting of contiguous, multistory flat-roofed houses. Spanish explorers of the American Southwest were the first to use the word pueblo. The ultimate root, populus, is Latin and is related to population and people. Today, the state of New Mexico is home to the greatest number of pueblos still in use.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Lai is steeped in the archaeology of the park, the Gabrielino establishment here, the Zanja Madre irrigation line that served the early pueblo.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2026
Instead they encountered Hawikku, an adobe pueblo in what is now western New Mexico.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
My maternal grandmother, Marcela Fernández, was born in 1914 in an Arizona copper town to parents who fled the Mexican Revolution before returning to their mountain pueblo in Zacatecas.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 4, 2026
Hackman and Arakawa “were not interested in re-creating native pueblo architecture,” he added.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 19, 2026
She pointed to the Indian guide who had been appointed to take them up to the pueblo.
From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
It could echo the display of the USS Pueblo, an American warship captured by North Korea in 1968 and displayed at its Victorious Fatherland Liberation War Museum.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 2026
The new business would be anchored by the majority-owned Nevada Gold Mines and the Pueblo Viejo mine in the Dominican Republic, as well as its wholly-owned Fourmile discovery in Nevada.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 19, 2026
Fellow congregants at Jaramillo’s longtime church, Good Shepherd Fellowship in Pueblo, regularly asked him to perform Christian songs — a favorite was “The Blood That Jesus Shed for Me” by gospel pioneer Andraé Crouch.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2025
Instead, Waldman found him in Pueblo, where Jaramillo had moved in the late 1970s to continue his post-Headhunters career as a railroad signal maintainer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 26, 2025
She was from Ohkay Owingeh, one of the Pueblo nations in the Southwest.
From "An Indigenous People’s History of the United States" by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Living in New Mexico, enthralled by its unique light, she painted pueblos, churches and her house at Ghost Ranch, where she spent many summers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 7, 2026
After Coronado recuperated, he marched east until the Spaniards encountered 12 Tiwa pueblos near present-day Albuquerque, N.M.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
The database has informed dozens of articles and books on early California and has allowed thousands of people to trace their own ancestry back to 18th century California pueblos, presidios and Native villages.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 5, 2025
This is a solo inspired by rituals that Graham observed in the pueblos of the American Southwest, specifically, the kachina figures that served as comic relief at religious ceremonies.
From New York Times ● Apr. 16, 2024
A bird’s-eye view of ten or a dozen of the principal pueblos, then a landing for lunch in the valley of Malpais.
From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
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