noun
definition
Any Moorish fortress in Spain.
Examples of alcazar in a Sentence
Georgie Jones was killed by Diego Alcazar.
In the Morocco campaigns of his last years, especially at the capture of Alcazar the Little (1458), he restored the military fame which he had founded at Ceuta and compromised at Tangier, and which brought him invitations from the pope, the emperor and the kings of Castile and England, to take command of their armies.
Though he waged war all through his reign he very rarely appeared in the field, but directed the generals, whom he never trusted, from his "lair" in the fortified palace, the Alcazar of Seville.
Alcazar is sometimes identified with the Roman Alce, captured by Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in 180 B.C. It derives its existing name from its medieval Moorish castle (al-kasr), which was afterwards garrisoned by the knights of St John.
Avila also possesses an old Moorish castle (alcazar) used as barracks, a foundling hospital, infirmary, military academy, and training schools for teachers of both sexes.
The townsfolk contend that the great Cervantes was a native of Alcazar; and, although this claim must be disallowed, much of the action of his masterpiece, Don Quixote, takes place in the neighbourhood.
Owing to its position on two important railways, Alcazar has a flourishing transit-trade in the wines of Estremadura and Andalusia; the soda and alkali of La Mancha are used in the manufacture of soap; and gunpowder, chocolate and inlaid daggers are also made here.