A hut; but more generally a farm.
1808. When we arrived at the Ranche, we soon had out a number of boys, who brought in the horse.—Z. M. Pike, ‘Sources of the Mississippi,’ iii. 254. (N.E.D.)
1840. The nearest house, they told us, was a Rancho, or cattle-farm, about three miles off.—R. H. Dana, Jr., ‘Two Years before the Mast,’ p. 35 (Id.)
1846. An arroyo, or small rivulet fed by springs, runs through his rancho, in such a course that, if expedient, he could, without much expense, irrigate one or two thousand acres.—Edwin Bryant, ‘What I saw in California,’ p. 306–7 (N.Y.).
1847. [In Mexico] we set off at day-break, and went twenty-one miles to a ranche.—‘Life of Benjamin Lundy,’ p. 58 (Phila.). (Italics in the original.)
1847. We encamped for the night at a ranche, where we could get nothing but goats’ milk. Of this they gave us as much as we wished, and would accept no pay for it.—Id., p. 127. (Italics in the original.)
1847. The word rancho seems to be employed to designate sometimes a farm and sometimes a farm house or hut; and hacienda to designate sometimes an estate or plantation, and sometimes the mansion house upon an estate.—Id., p. 159 n.
1849. Here we found another encampment of engineers, and hard by a rancho of a native.—Theodore T. Johnson, ‘Sights in the Gold Region,’ p. 45 (N.Y.). (Italics in the original.)
1855. [Some will ask,] But is buying a rancho embraced in your salvation?—Amasa Lyman at the Mormon Tabernacle, Dec. 2: ‘Journal of Discourses,’ iii. 150.
