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ro·de·o (rōdē-ō′, rō-dāō)
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n. pl. ro·de·os
1. A public competition or exhibition in which skills such as riding broncos or roping calves are displayed.
2. Archaic
a. A cattle roundup.
b. An enclosure for keeping cattle that have been rounded up.
[Spanish, corral, rodeo, from rodear, to surround, from rueda, wheel, from Latin rota; see ret- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.]
(click for a larger image)
rodeo
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2020 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
 

Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices

    Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices:

    Indo-European Roots

    Semitic Roots

    The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

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