Word.ws English Dictionary

chaparral

Syllables: chap·ar·ral/ˌʃæp.əˈɹæl/US/ˌʃæp.əˈɹæl/

chaparral noun: a region of shrubs, typically dry in the summer and rainy in the winter. The coast of the Mediterranean is such a region.

chaparral: a region of shrubs, typically dry in the summer and rainy in the winter. The coast of the...
Image: michael h j c, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

chaparral (countable and uncountable, plural chaparrals)

  1. (US) A region of shrubs, typically dry in the summer and rainy in the winter. The coast of the Mediterranean is such a region.
    • It was quite dark when, after an arduous climb, the sheriff made his tortuous way through the chaparral to the point where Anthony Garland should be stationed.1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter IV, in The Understanding Heart
    • Have you ever been south of Monterey? / Barrancas carve the coastline / And the chaparral flows to the sea / 'Neath waves of golden sunshine1973, Al Jardine, “California Saga (California)”, in Holland, performed by The Beach Boys
  2. The foliage of creosote bush, Larrea divaricata, when used as a medicinal herb.

Proper noun capitalized: Chaparral

Chaparral

  1. A neighbourhood in south-east Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
  2. A census-designated place in Doña Ana County and Otero County, New Mexico, United States.
  3. A town and municipality in Tolima department, Colombia.

Forms of chaparral

pluralchaparrals

Origin of chaparral

From Spanish chaparral, from chaparro (“evergreen oak”) + -al, from Basque txaparro, from txapar, from sapar.

Words formed from chaparral

Phrases with chaparral

Words that rhyme with chaparral

11 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about chaparral

What does chaparral mean?
Chaparral means a region of shrubs, typically dry in the summer and rainy in the winter. The coast of the Mediterranean is such a region.
What part of speech is chaparral?
Chaparral can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce chaparral?
Chaparral is pronounced /ˌʃæp.əˈɹæl/ (UK).
What is the plural of chaparral?
The plural of chaparral is chaparrals.

Words near chaparral in the dictionary

  1. chapans
  2. chaparajos
  3. chaparejos
  4. Chaparian
  5. Chaparians
  6. chaparral
  7. chaparral bird
  8. chaparral birds
  9. chaparral cock
  10. chaparral cocks
  11. chaparral hen

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chaparral (page history and authors); Chaparral (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-chaparral.wav.

Cite this entry: “chaparral.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chaparral. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.