Definition of "posada" [posada]

• A Christmas festival originating in Latin America that dramatizes the search of Joseph and Mary for lodging. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "_El salir de la posada, es la mejor jornada_, -- "_the best part of the journey_, say the Spaniards, _is the getting_ _out of the posada_.""
• "It's currently the low season, so the posada is closed, but it is open for bookings from December onwards."
• "The girls there would ask me if the English caballero in the posada was a monk in disguise, or if he had taken a vow to the sancissima madre not to speak to a woman, or whether -- You can imagine what fairly free-spoken girls will ask when they come to the point of not caring what they say; and it used to vex me."