Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A Christmas festival originating in Latin America that dramatizes the search of Joseph and Mary for lodging.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An inn.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A traditional Mexican Christmas procession

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[American Spanish, from Spanish, lodging, from posar, to lodge, rest, from Late Latin pausāre, to rest, from Latin pausa, pause; see pause.]

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Examples

  • _El salir de la posada, es la mejor jornada_, -- "_the best part of the journey_, say the Spaniards, _is the getting_ _out of the posada_."

    A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 Volume 1 (of 2) Philip Thicknesse 1755

  • It's currently the low season, so the posada is closed, but it is open for bookings from December onwards.

    South America: Perfect posadas Vicky Baker 2010

  • The girls there would ask me if the English caballero in the posada was a monk in disguise, or if he had taken a vow to the sancissima madre not to speak to a woman, or whether -- You can imagine what fairly free-spoken girls will ask when they come to the point of not caring what they say; and it used to vex me.

    Victory Joseph Conrad 1890

  • The posada was a wretched one, but there were few people in it.

    In New Granada Heroes and Patriots William Henry Giles Kingston 1847

  • The posada was a large building, the windows of which were well fenced with rejas, or iron grating: no light gleamed from them, and the silence of death not only seemed to pervade the house, but the street in which it was situated.

    The Bible in Spain; or, the journeys, adventures, and imprisonments of an Englishman, in an attempt to circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula George Henry Borrow 1842

  • The posada was a large building, the windows of which were well fenced with rejas, or iron grating: no light gleamed from them, and the silence of death not only seemed to pervade the house, but the street in which it was situated.

    The Bible in Spain 1712

  • A posada is a Christmas festival celebrated in Latin America that dramatizes Joseph and Mary's search for lodging in anticipation of the birth of Jesus.

    KFDM.com Breaking News : News By ANA LEY/The Monitor 2009

  • A posada is a Christmas festival celebrated in Latin America that dramatizes Joseph and Mary's search for lodging in anticipation of the birth of Jesus.

    Brownsville Herald : 2009

  • We got there late Saturday night and checked into our "posada" kind of like a bed and breakfast, but cooler.

    Colonia, Uruguay! 2007

  • Christmas carols (villancicos) are sung by all in the procession, and the songs ask for "posada" or shelter at the inn.

    Las Posadas: the nine days of Christmas 2002

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  • "...he had passed a posada where carts and wagons stood under the shade of carob-trees while their drivers drank and rested..."

    --O'Brian, The Wine-Dark Sea, 139

    March 14, 2008