potrero

See also: Potrero

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Spanish potrero.

Noun

potrero (plural potreros)

1. A long mesa on the flank of a mountain.

   Hypernyms: table mountain, mesa

   • 1931, Mary Hunter Austin, Starry Adventure, page 274:

     Her driver was new to the country; he mightn't be prepared for the leaping of the yellow water down dry arroyos, swift as the pouncings of a cat, or the snake-like slidings of tons of loosened rock and clay from the steep potreros […]

   • 1992, Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses, →ISBN, page 105:

     They went to work on the green colts daybreak Sunday morning, dressing in the half dark in clothes still wet from their washing them the night before and walking out to the potrero before the stars were down, eating a cold tortilla wrapped around a scoop of cold beans and no coffee and carrying their forty foot maguey catchropes coiled over their shoulders.

Further reading

• potrero (landform) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• protero-, trooper

Spanish

Etymology

From potro +‎ -ero.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /poˈtɾeɾo/ [poˈt̪ɾe.ɾo]
• Rhymes: -eɾo
• Syllabification: po‧tre‧ro

Noun

potrero m (plural potreros)

1. ranch or open range where horses are raised
2. enclosed pasture that is (overgrazed) common land
3. long mesa on the flank of a mountain
4. wrangler (of horses)

Descendants

• → English: potrero

Further reading

• “potrero”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10