Corral

How to spell corral

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce corral

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does corral mean?

1. nounA fenced enclosure used to hold horses, cattle, or other livestock.
2. verbTo gather, drive, or confine into a group or enclosed space.

Corral in a sentence

• noun

  The ranch hands led the horses into the corral at dusk.

• verb

  The volunteers worked together to corral the loose ponies before nightfall.

• noun

  A sturdy wooden corral kept the cattle from wandering onto the road.

• verb

  The teacher tried to corral the excited children into a single line.

Where does corral come from?

Language of origin: Spanish

Corral came into English in the early 1800s from Spanish, where corral meant an enclosure or pen for livestock. The Spanish word is generally traced back to corro, meaning a ring or a circle of people, and beyond that to the Vulgar Latin currale, a place where carts or vehicles were penned, linked to currus, the Latin word for a cart or chariot. The idea of a ringed-off space for animals travelled north into the American West with Spanish ranching, and English speakers borrowed both the word and the practice. The same Iberian root also gave Portuguese curral and, by a separate route, the word kraal used in southern Africa for a cattle enclosure or village. Because the word doubles the r and ends in a single l, writers often stumble: the trap is keeping two r's but only one l, the reverse of the instinct that wants to double the final consonant.

How the word is built

• corral (from Spanish corro: a ring or circle), ultimately a stockade or enclosure