jacal

[ huh-kahl, hah- ]

noun

, plural ja·ca·les [h, uh, -, kah, -leys, -leyz, hah-], ja·cals.

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.

Word History and Origins

Origin of jacal¹

1830–40, Americanism; < Mexican Spanish < Nahuatl xahcalli

Example Sentences

It also showed that Veranda fired two employees, Marco Jacal and Isidro Suarez, both Mexican immigrants, shortly after they complained to Make the Road, officials said.

From New York Times

Mr. Jacal and Mr. Suarez filed their complaints on the same day that the Wage Theft Prevention Act took effect, said Deborah Axt, deputy director of Make the Road.

From New York Times

If he had observed her only an hour earlier re-entering the jacal after a shivering exchange outside with the peona he might not have been quite so sure.

From Project Gutenberg

Leaping out of red coal, an occasional flame set its reflection in her deep eyes, and as his gaze wandered from her around the rough jacal Seyd found it difficult to realize that it was indeed he, Robert Seyd, mining engineer of San Francisco, who sat there sharing food and fire with a girl, on the one hand scion of the Mexican aristocracy, descendant on the other of a line which ran back into the dim time of the Aztecs.

From Project Gutenberg

The girl herself is consulted; a jacal is erected for her, and after many deliberations, the bridegroom is provisionally received into the wife’s clan for a year under conditions of the most exacting character.

From Project Gutenberg