1. A public competition or exhibition in which skills such as riding broncos or roping calves are displayed.
2. A cattle roundup.
3. An enclosure for keeping cattle that have been rounded up.

[Spanish, corral, rodeo, from rodear, to surround, from rueda, wheel, from Latin rota.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.