cabalar

An archaic, literary verb (related to cabal, "exact, complete") meaning to complete or make something whole/exact — largely obsolete in modern Spanish, replaced entirely by completar or finalizar in everyday use.

• El texto antiguo dice que cabalaron la cuenta con las últimas monedas. — The old text says they made the count exact with the last coins.
• Cabalaron la medida añadiendo lo que faltaba. — They completed the measurement by adding what was missing.
• Un cronista de la época usaba cabalar donde hoy diríamos completar. — A chronicler of the period used cabalar where today we'd say completar.

This verb has essentially dropped out of use — a learner who runs across it in an old text shouldn't try to use it themselves; completar or terminar are what any modern speaker would say.

Often confused with completar.