adobe

noun ado·be \ ə-ˈdō-bē \

|Updated on: 11 Jul 2018

Examples: adobe in a Sentence

Editor's Note: Did You Know?

Definition of adobe

1 : a brick or building material of sun-dried earth and straw

2 : a structure made of adobe bricks

3 : a heavy clay used in making adobe bricks; broadly : alluvial or playa clay in desert or arid regions

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adobelike

play \-ˌlīk\ adjective

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Examples of adobe in a Sentence

The house was built of adobe.

Recent Examples of adobe from the Web

Packard said the adobe-style resort has seen no impact from the forest closure and credited authorities with putting up signs telling visitors that local businesses are open.

— trevor hughes, USA TODAY, "Wildfires in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona force closure of large chunks of forest," 12 June 2018
Also up for grabs? Real-life lessons in harvesting, adobe brick building, caring for livestock and beekeeping.

— lindsay cohn, USA TODAY, "Agriturismo, American style: 8 farm and food experiences in the USA," 15 June 2018
Some of the therapy took place an hour outside Scottsdale in Wickenburg (population: 6,300) at Gentle Path at the Meadows: an inpatient, men-only 38-acre compound of adobe cabins and cactuses.

— amy chozick, New York Times, "Where’s Harvey?," 9 Mar. 2018
His gaze took in the sun-beaten, gray adobe buildings, all one-story structures, that rimmed the vacant quadrangle.

— erik spanberg, The Christian Science Monitor, "'Elmore Leonard: Westerns' celebrates Leonard's mastery of the genre," 5 June 2018
It was marked as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places as Peoria's only example of a traditional adobe structure.

— laura gómez, azcentral, "Are officials erasing history or sparking rebirth in Old Town Peoria?," 18 May 2018
The property, spread across 12 parcels totaling 480 acres, has an adobe-style ranch house with a bird's-eye view that stretches as far as Edwards Air Force Base.

— neal j. leitereg, jack flemming and lauren beale, sacbee, "Taylor Swift is selling this midcentury home in Beverly Hills. It's yours for $2.95 million | The Sacramento Bee," 13 May 2018
The plaster on old buildings peeled to reveal straw in the adobe bricks underneath.

— aaron gilbreath, Longreads, "Finding the Soundtrack to My Desert Life," 25 Apr. 2018
The 1954 home was built without nails and retains its original roof and 15-inch-thick adobe walls.

— neal j. leitereg, jack flemming and lauren beale, sacbee, "Taylor Swift is selling this midcentury home in Beverly Hills. It's yours for $2.95 million | The Sacramento Bee," 13 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'adobe.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Did You Know?

Handmade sun-dried bricks, adobes are formed from a mixture of heavy clay and straw found in dry regions. As a building material, adobes date back thousands of years and are found in many parts of the world. Molds for shaping the bricks were brought to the New World by the Spanish. Excellent insulating properties make adobes ideal material for both dwellings and ovens; home interiors retain heat in winter and stay cool in summer. The adobe buildings at Taos, New Mexico, are typical of Native American pueblo dwellings.

Illustration of adobe

Origin and Etymology of adobe

borrowed from Spanish, borrowed from Arabic aṭ-ṭūb, from al "the" + ṭūb "brick (material), bricks," borrowed from Coptic (Sahidic dialect) tôôbe, (Bohairic dialect) tôbi "brick," going back to Old Egyptian db.t

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1748

in the meaning defined at sense 1

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