rota
rota
1 American
[roh-tuh]
/ ˈroʊ tə /
noun
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Chiefly British.
-
a round or rotation of duties; a period of work or duty taken in rotation with others.
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an agenda or circuit of sporting events, as a round of golf tournaments, played in different localities throughout the year.
-
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a roster.
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Official Name Sacra Romana Rota or Sacred Roman Rota. (initial capital letter) the ecclesiastical tribunal in Rome, constituting the court of final appeal.
rota
2
American
[roh-tuh]
/ ˈroʊ tə /
noun
Rota
3
American
[raw-tah]
/ ˈrɔ tɑ /
noun
Rota
1
British
/ ˈrəʊtə /
noun
rota
2
British
/ ˈrəʊtə /
noun
Etymology
Origin of rota
First recorded in 1650–60; from Latin: “wheel”
Explanation
A rota is a schedule that lists who will do a particular job and when they will do it. If you can't remember what day you're supposed to volunteer at the library, you should check the rota. You can also call a rota a roster. Win a spot on the soccer team or chess club, and you'll find your name on a rota: these are lists of team members, or schedules of upcoming competitions. At work, a rota tells you what shifts you'll be responsible for working next week. And at home, your parents' cleaning rota may assign tasks to each member of the family — just be glad it's not your turn to scour the bathroom.
Vocabulary lists containing rota
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Most parents lose sleep over the amount of piecemeal work required to cobble together a summer schedule; very few relish the planning and spreadsheets and carpool rota involved in keeping their kids safe and occupied.
From Salon ● Jun. 24, 2026
The court heard the men resorted to a "secret rota" of sleeping in shifts and eating animals from the vessel's catch in order to survive.
From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026
The NHS Confederation and NHS Providers say that the doctors' strike in England in July led to £300m of costs for NHS trusts, including covering rota gaps.
From BBC ● Oct. 26, 2025
Alongside critical care practitioners are highly-trained consultants who cover the shifts on a rota basis in addition to their NHS hospital roles, each of them a specialist in "pre-hospital emergency medicine".
From BBC ● Jul. 31, 2025
She also kept doing little favours for me, like making me sandwiches, or taking on parts of my cleaning rota.
From "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro
With the exception of Rota, the damage in the region of around 210,000 people was less severe than after Sinkalu, a super typhoon that hit in April.
From Barron's ● Jul. 7, 2026
"Many homes have suffered severe damage, with countless roofs completely torn off... Across the island, there is no electricity, no running water, and no mobile network service," said Rota resident Masum Dhali, 24.
From Barron's ● Jul. 7, 2026
“Everything is harder,” said Njord Rota, a former military pilot who tested experimental helicopters for Lockheed Martin and now helps run Ravco, a high-altitude helicopter training school in Colorado.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
From the melodic Sicilian ghosts of “The Godfather” by composer Nino Rota to the aching Eastern European love theme in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” by Wojciech Kilar, his stories ooze with musical expression.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 20, 2024
United States scientists have had some encouraging early results with the melon fly and the oriental and Mediterranean fruit flies in laboratory tests in Hawaii and field tests on the remote island of Rota.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
