adobe

[ uh-doh-bee ]

noun

1. sun-dried brick made of clay and straw, in common use in countries having little rainfall.
2. a yellow silt or clay, deposited by rivers, used to make bricks.
3. a building constructed of adobe.
4. a dark, heavy soil, containing clay.

adobe

/ əˈdəʊbɪ /

noun

1. 1. a sun-dried brick used for building
   2. ( as modifier )

      an adobe house

2. a building constructed of such bricks
3. the clayey material from which such bricks are made

Word History and Origins

Origin of adobe¹

1750–60; Americanism; < Spanish < Arabic al-ṭub the brick < Coptic to:o:be brick < Egyptian Demotic tb < Egyptian Hieroglyphic ḏbt

Word History and Origins

Origin of adobe¹

C19: from Spanish

Example Sentences

If you have the time, hike the park road up to the adobe visitors center and museum.

From Los Angeles Times

Augustine and other displaced Pomos toiled as forced laborers in the area — tending farm animals, herding cattle to slaughter at San Pablo Bay and building adobe houses in Sonoma.

From Los Angeles Times

In the 1990s, the MTA, about to build more turn lanes, uncovered the actual foundations of the original adobe, roof tiles, and ceramic floor tiles upon which the 1847 treaty-makers probably walked.

From Los Angeles Times

The notebook was the first of about a dozen ledgers that I would find in the adobe house and at the family’s current home in Huajuapan de León, a Oaxacan city of 80,000.

From Los Angeles Times

And his code, written hastily in his provisional courtroom — an adobe shack adjoining a horse corral — reflected some of the prevailing prejudices of the early American frontier, imposing numerous restrictions on people who weren’t white.

From Los Angeles Times