bullfight

[ bool-fahyt ]

noun

1. a traditional Spanish, Portuguese, or Latin American spectacle in which a bull is fought fought by a matador, assisted by banderilleros and picadors, in a prescribed way in an arena and is usually killed.

bullfight

/ ˈbʊlˌfaɪt /

noun

1. a traditional Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American spectacle in which a matador, assisted by banderilleros and mounted picadors, baits and usually kills a bull in an arena

Derived Forms

• ˈbullˌfighting, noun
• ˈbullˌfighter, noun

Other Words From

• bullfighting noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of bullfight¹

First recorded in 1745–55; bull ¹ + fight

Example Sentences

Then we marvel at the Teatro Real opera house and proceed through the winding streets of old Madrid to the Plaza Mayor, once the site of Inquisition autos-da-fé, royal celebrations, and bullfights.

From MIT Technology Review

He wrote with empathy of women dying in childbirth, while penning paragraph after paragraph about bullfights.

From Washington Blade

What we remember most from his books isn’t the wars or the bullfights.

From Washington Blade

She saw her first bullfight at seven while on a family vacation in Mexico, and fell in love with the sport.

From The Daily Beast

Across the stadium in the northeast corner, the mass of red-colored fans of Bnei Sakhnin was like a flag at a bullfight.

From The Daily Beast

No campaign can afford a multitude of competing strategies, or row upon row of bullfight critics publicly questioning every move.

From The Daily Beast

But, she added, “The bullfight is an ecosystem and, one could say, an honest one.”

From The Daily Beast

In the Sunday newspaper, the reporter said that the painting stayed somehow alive through the whole bullfight.

From The Daily Beast

He ceased to find pleasure in his nets and boar spears, in the fandango and the bullfight.

From Project Gutenberg

She had forgotten that a bullfight meant that there would be blood and killing.

From Project Gutenberg

By this the whole matter had presented itself to them as an entertainment more diverting than bullfight or bear-baiting.

From Project Gutenberg

He swallowed a tumbler of port, a wine he rarely touched; but he felt worse now than after the bullfight.

From Project Gutenberg

Shelton was conscious of a shiver running through the audience which reminded him of a bullfight he had seen in Spain.

From Project Gutenberg