Definitions

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

  • noun A Mexican herdsman's hut.
  • noun A village of these huts.
  • noun A rural Native American settlement.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In Mexico, the dwelling-place of a ranchero or of rancheros; a herdsman's hut, or a village of herders; hence, a settlement, more or less permanent, of Indians.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A dwelling place of a ranchero.
  • noun Sp. Amer. & Southwestern U. S. A small settlement or collection of ranchos, or rude huts, esp. for Indians.
  • noun Formerly, in the Philippines, a political division of the pagan tribes.

Etymologies

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

[American Spanish ranchería, from rancho, small farm; see ranch.]

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Examples

  • [30] A rancheria is a small dependent settlement of Christianized people.

    The Manóbos of Mindanáo Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir John M. Garvan

  • He knew of a depository of wax-candles, and the church of the rancheria was the place in which they were kept.

    The War Trail The Hunt of the Wild Horse Mayne Reid 1850

  • The mountain side, as he well knew, was thickly strewn with dry branches, dead limbs, uprooted trees and all manner of combustible material, and the very warriors who, when around their own "rancheria," would have disdained doing a stroke of work of any kind, were now laboring like so many beavers to add to the great pile that was already almost on a level with the breastwork and not more than eight feet away.

    Sunset Pass or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land Charles King 1888

  • It was a four-days 'hard march to the locality where Captain Buxton counted on finding his victims; and when on the fourth day, rather tired and not particularly enthusiastic, the command bivouacked along the banks of a mountain-torrent, a safe distance from the supposed location of the Indian stronghold, he sent forward his Apache Mojave allies to make a stealthy reconnoissance, feeling confident that soon after nightfall they would return with the intelligence that the enemy were lazily resting in their "rancheria," all unsuspicious of his approach, and that at daybreak he would pounce upon and annihilate them.

    Starlight Ranch and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier Charles King 1888

  • In 1723 they recorded a bloody attack against an Apache rancheria.

    EMPIRE OF THE SUMMER MOON S. C. Gwynne 2010

  • They began their journey from Ocojala, a small rancheria, where both of the children were born.

    San Francisco, Ixtacamaxtitlan, part 1 2007

  • The summer months in California brought such an onslaught of these that the residents of any Indian rancheria would have to burn their huts down and move to better grounds.

    {Pulgas} Francisco Nieto Salazar 2009

  • The summer months in California brought such an onslaught of these that the residents of any Indian rancheria would have to burn their huts down and move to better grounds.

    {Pulgas} 2009

  • They began their journey from Ocojala, a small rancheria, where both of the children were born.

    San Francisco, Ixtacamaxtitlan, part 1 2007

  • She reports that some land owners in the rancheria area of El Calaboz,

    Emergency for Texas Native Americans who own land where Government wants border fence 2007

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