Jacal

//həˈkɑːl// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A wattle-and-mud hut common in Mexico and the southwestern US.

    "The leaning jacal of dried rush-withes and corn sheaves, bound to tall saplings thrust into the earth, roofed with yellowed maguey leaves flattened and overlapping like shingles, hunched drowsy and fragrant in the warmth of noonday."

Synonyms

All synonyms
igloo

Example

More examples

"The leaning jacal of dried rush-withes and corn sheaves, bound to tall saplings thrust into the earth, roofed with yellowed maguey leaves flattened and overlapping like shingles, hunched drowsy and fragrant in the warmth of noonday."

Etymology

From Mexican Spanish jacal, from Nahuatl xacalli.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.