▪ I. corral, n.
(kɒˈræl, -ˈrɑːl)
[Sp. corral an enclosed place, yard, court-yard, pen, poultry-yard, etc.]
a. An enclosure or pen for horses, cattle, etc.; a fold; a stockade. (Chiefly in Spanish America and U.S.). Cf. kraal.
| 1582 N. Lichefield tr. Castanheda's Conq. E. Ind. A iij a, To be as it wer in one Corall, and vnder one Pastour or Shepheard. 1825 Caldcleugh Trav. S. Amer. I. ix. 263 Catching the horses in his coral. 1845 Darwin Voy. Nat. iv. (1873) 64 To drive all the cattle into the corral. Note, The corral is an enclosure made of tall strong stakes. 1887 M. Roberts W. Avernus 5 Building sheep ‘corrals’ or pens of heaped, thorny mesquite brush. |
| attrib. 1872 C. King Mountain. Sierra Nev. v. 99 ‘To go and see if them corral bars are down.’ |
| transf. 1849 Dana Geol. vii. (1850) 381 This great corral [a crater], if we may use a foreign word, is a thousand feet deep. 1888 Cornh. Mag. Apr. 385 A bird in every bush, without one showing outside the corral of boughs. |
b. An enclosure formed of wagons in an encampment, for defence against attack.
| 1847 G. F. Ruxton Adv. Mexico 177 (Bartlett) The waggons formed into a corral or square, and close together, so that the whole made a most formidable fort. 1859 Marcy Prairie Trav. xi. 55 [He] will..form his wagons into a circle or ‘corral’, with the animals toward the centre. |
c. An enclosure for capturing wild animals; e.g. wild elephants in Ceylon.
| 1845 Darwin Voy. Nat. viii. (1879) 151 A troop of wild young horses is driven into the Corral, or large enclosure of stakes. 1859 Tennent Ceylon II. viii. iv. 348 In constructing the corral, collecting the elephants..and conducting all the laborious operations of the capture. |
▪ II. corral, v. ChieflyU.S.
(kɒˈræl, -ˈrɑːl)
[f. prec. n.]
1. a. trans. To form (wagons) into a corral.
| 1848 E. Bryant California (1849) iii. 19 The wagons, in forming the encampment, were what is called corraled, an anglicised Spanish word, the significance of which, in our use of the term, is, that they were formed in a circle. 1868 Dilke Greater Brit. I. i. xiii. 143 As many wagons as there were fires were corralled in an ellipse about the road. |
b. absol. To draw up the wagons in a circle.
| a 1848 G. F. Ruxton Life Far West (1849) 12 It was pretty nigh upon sundown, and Bill had just sung out to ‘corral’. 1875 Fur, Fin & Feather 108 At midnight the rear drivers joyously see the little fires flashing up far ahead here and there upon the prairie, telling them that the head of the train has begun to corral. 1894 in Kansas Hist. Coll. (1896) V. 93 Several trains were compelled to corral and ‘stand them [sc. Indians] off’ until relieved by the dragoons. |
2. To shut up in, or as in, a corral; to confine.
| 1847 G. F. Ruxton Adv. Mexico 238 (Bartlett) The animals were all collected and coralled. 1890 E. N. Buxton in 19th Cent. No. 162. 224 At night..they coral their flocks of goats. 1890 Century Mag. Aug. 613/1 Here they coralled us [prisoners] to the number of seven or eight thousand. |
3. U.S. colloq. or slang. To secure, lay hold of, seize, capture, ‘collar’.
| 1860 Knickerbocker Jan. 100, I want to ‘corel’ you for a little chat. 1867 ‘Mark Twain’ Jumping Frog 157 That sort of thing would corral their sympathies. 1868 Amer. Newspaper in Dilke Greater Brit. I. 160 ‘These leeches corral more clear cash than most quartz mills’, remonstrates the editor. 1885 Harper's Mag. Apr. 663/2 We dashed out of the door, corralled a porter. 1888 New York Times 30 Dec., We will corral some of the ice cream. 1910 Wodehouse Psmith in City viii. 64 How did we corral him, and become to him practically as long-lost sons? 1965 Economist 23 Jan. 322/1 The whip is charged theoretically with the duty of corraling votes for party programmes. |
Hence corralled ppl. a.
| 1851 Mayne Reid Scalp Hunt. iii, The camp, with its corralled waggons. |