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

Other Word Forms

• bullfighting noun
• bullfighter noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of bullfight¹

First recorded in 1745–55; bull ¹ + fight

Example Sentences

But in fact they were leaping from bed to bed in a wild game of bullfighting.

Read more on Literature

Beneath the clipped prose and bullfight bravado is a meditation on appetite, both emotional and physical.

Read more on Salon

These brilliant episodes describe gangster murders, war injuries, firing squads, hangings and bullfight triumphs and deaths.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

He and Jake leave Paris to fish in the Pyrenees and watch bullfights in Pamplona, where tensions among the expatriates explode.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Such is the rub you may find yourself in with iconoclastic Spanish director Albert Serra’s “Afternoons of Solitude,” his first nonfiction film, an unflinching gaze at bullfighting, its hushed, ornate rituals and gruesome realities.

Read more on Los Angeles Times