latilla

[ luh-tee-uh; Spanish lah-tee-yah ]

noun

, Chiefly Southwestern U.S.

1. a peeled branch or piece of wood laid between beams of a ceiling or above the vigas for decoration.

Word History and Origins

Origin of latilla¹

First recorded in 1985–90; from Latin American Spanish: literally, “little stick,” from Spanish, diminutive of lata “stick, strip of wood,” from Vulgar Latin latta “lath, stick” (unattested); either latta, deriving from West Germanic lattō “board, slat” (unattested), or both latta and lattō deriving from the same unknown source + -illa feminine diminutive noun suffix

Example Sentences

Inside, the home’s sprawling rooms are also nearly just how she left them: Eames chairs, viga and latilla ceilings, the artist’s lone martini glass on the kitchen shelf, leather boots in the closet, original dried herbs in their original jars lined up in the pantry.

From Washington Post

Other more or less formative figures associated with the Pietà, like Giovanni Porta, Nicola Porpora, Andrea Bernasconi, Fulgenso Perotti and Gaetano Latilla, were also included.

From New York Times

Knowledgeable restaurant buyers shift their purchases with the season, but Mr. Latilla says retail consumers “buy with their eyes, whatever looks good” — which means they may not be able to see past the rind to August’s uncharacteristically sweet honeydew flesh.

From New York Times

“I couldn’t believe how many honeydews I sold today,” Vito Latilla, co-owner of the Manhattan Fruit Exchange, a fruit wholesaler and retailer, told me on Aug. 1.

From New York Times

Don Pascal Latilla, who had been lucky enough to avoid his majesty's notice, told us a number of pleasant anecdotes about the king; all shewed him in the amiable light of a friend of mirth and an enemy to all pomp and stateliness, by which kings are hedged in generally.

From Project Gutenberg