jacal

noun

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.”

   “A few jacales of brush and mud with brush roofs and a pole corral where five scrubby horses with big heads stood looking solemnly at the horses passing in the road.”

   “Canning fruit and vegetables in the worst of the summer heat—hotter in the jacals than it was outside.”