Olla
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A cooking-pot or earthenware jar used in Spain and Spanish-speaking countries.
"On top of the counter were three clay jars or ollas. Two of them were empty but the third was covered with the tin lid from a lardpail and the lid was notched to accommodate the handle of an enameled tin dipper."
- 2 leaf or strip from a leaf of the talipot palm used in India for writing paper wordnet
- 3 A pot used for cooling water by evaporation in Latin America.
- 4 An unglazed earthenware pot, buried to provide slow steady irrigation.
"An olla (which literally means “pot”) is a round, unglazed terra cotta clay pot with a long neck that you fill with water and bury next to your plants. It irrigates in the ground."
- 5 A cinerary urn. Ancient-Rome
Example
More examples"On top of the counter were three clay jars or ollas. Two of them were empty but the third was covered with the tin lid from a lardpail and the lid was notched to accommodate the handle of an enameled tin dipper."
Etymology
Borrowed from Spanish olla, from Latin ōlla, aulla; akin to Sanskrit उखा (ukhā, “pot”), and probably also Gothic 𐌰𐌿𐌷𐌽𐍃 (auhns, “oven”).
Related phrases
More for "olla"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.