El Dorado

[ el duh-rah-doh, -rey- or, Spanish, el daw-rah-thaw for 1, 2; el duh-rey-doh for 3, 4 ]

noun
  1. a legendary treasure city of South America, sought by the early Spanish explorers.

  2. any place offering great wealth.

  1. a city in S Arkansas.

  2. a town in S Kansas.

Words Nearby El Dorado

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use El Dorado in a sentence

  • And yet for his new book, The Lost City of Z, Grann marched off into the Amazon jungle to search for a fabled El Dorado.

    Raiders of the Lost City | The Daily Beast | February 24, 2009 | THE DAILY BEAST
  • May we not connect with the former existence of this inland sea the fable of the lake Parima and the El Dorado?

  • The term ‘El Dorado’ has come to be a synonym in the outside world for a sort of earthly paradise, has it not?

  • To conquer that El Dorado had been Balboa's cherished dream.

    South American Fights and Fighters | Cyrus Townsend Brady
  • But how often is it true that the seeker after El Dorado searches for one thing and finds another.

    Heroes of To-Day | Mary R. Parkman
  • The costly myth of El Dorado, from the earliest days of its conception, was insatiable in the matter of human lives.

    South America | W. H. Koebel

British Dictionary definitions for El Dorado

El Dorado

/ (ɛl dɒˈrɑːdəʊ, Spanish ɛl doˈraðo) /


noun
  1. a fabled city in South America, rich in treasure and sought by Spanish explorers in the 16th century

  2. Also: eldorado any place of great riches or fabulous opportunity

Origin of El Dorado

1
C16: from Spanish, literally: the gilded (place)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for El Dorado

El Dorado

[ (el duh-rah-doh) ]


A place of fabulous wealth, or an opportunity to obtain it. During the gold rush many adventurers believed that California would be their El Dorado. The name comes from the name of a legendary South American city of stupendous riches sought by Spanish conquistadores.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.