rancheria

See also: ranchería

English

Etymology

From Spanish ranchería.

Noun

rancheria (plural rancherias)

1. A small settlement in the Americas, especially of Native Americans. [from 16th c.]
   • 1895, J[ohn] W[esley] Powell, chapter I, in Canyons of the Colorado, Meadville, PA: Flood & Vincent; republished as The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons, New York: Dover, 1961, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 22:

     The springs are so few in number that their names are household words in every Indian rancheria and every settler's home; and there are no brooks, no creeks, and no rivers but the trunk of the Colorado and the trunk of the Gila.

   • 2013, Philipp Meyer, The Son, Simon & Schuster, published 2014, page 98:

     As for escaping, there were eight hundred miles of dry wilderness between the ranchería and civilization.

2. (Philippines, historical) A political division denoting a small poor rural settlement.