Rodeo

How to spell rodeo

5 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce rodeo

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does rodeo mean?

1. nounA competitive public event in which riders show skills such as bronco riding, bull riding, and cattle roping.

Rodeo in a sentence

• The family drove out to the rodeo to watch the bull riding.

• Every summer the small town hosts a rodeo that draws crowds from across the county.

Where does rodeo come from?

Language of origin: Spanish

The word comes straight from Spanish rodeo, which originally meant a going-around or a roundup, built on the verb rodear, meaning 'to surround' or 'to encircle'. That verb in turn grew from rodar, 'to roll' or 'to go round', which traces back to the Latin rotare, 'to rotate', and ultimately rota, the Latin word for 'wheel'. In ranching country the term first described the practical act of rounding up cattle and driving them together in a circle. As American cowboys turned their working skills into public contests during the nineteenth century, the word came to mean the competitive show of riding and roping itself, entering English in the American Southwest where Spanish and English mixed daily. The buried 'wheel' sense is a handy memory aid: a rodeo is literally about going round, just as rota and rotate share the same spinning ancestor.

How the word is built

• rode- (from Spanish rodear: to surround, encircle)
• -o (Spanish noun ending)