Jacal
/ˈhɑː.kɑːl/noun
A hut or house made of upright poles and mud or adobe, especially in the southwestern U.S. and Mexico.
Did you know?Jacal comes from a Spanish borrowing of a Nahuatl word for a simple hut, showing how Indigenous building terms survived into colonial Spanish and then English.
Etymological Timeline
Pre-Columbian
Nah
xacalli
“a hut or small house”
16th Century
Spanish
jacal
“a hut made of wattle and daub; a rough dwelling”
19th Century
English
jacal
“a hut or small house, especially in the American Southwest”
Modern English
English
jacal
“a hut or dwelling built with poles and adobe or mud”