corral

Etymology

From Spanish corral. Doublet of kraal.

noun

1. An enclosure for livestock, especially a circular one.
   We had a small corral out back where we kept our pet llama.
2. An enclosure or area to concentrate a dispersed group.
   Please return the shopping carts to the corral.
3. A circle of wagons, either for the purpose of trapping livestock, or for defense.
   The wagon train formed a corral to protect against Comanche attacks.

verb

1. To capture or round up.
   Between us, we managed to corral the puppies in the kitchen.
   By the end of this year the work of 168 coal depots scattered throughout the Birmingham Division will have been coralled [sic] into about two dozen concentration depots. 1964 March, “News and Comment: Coal concentration in Birmingham”, in Modern Railways, page 152
   They provide an unprecedented inside view of the continuing clampdown in Xinjiang, in which the authorities have corralled as many as a million ethnic Uighurs, Kazakhs and others into internment camps and prisons over the past three years. 2019-11-16, Austin Ramzy, Chris Buckley, “‘Absolutely No Mercy’: Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims”, in New York Times
2. To place inside of a corral.
   After we corralled the last steer, we headed off to the chuck wagon for dinner.
3. To make a circle of vehicles, as of wagons so as to form a corral.
   The cattle drivers corralled their wagons for the night.