picador
Americannoun
-
picadors,
plural
-
picadores
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of picador
1790–1800; < Spanish: literally, pricker, equivalent to pic ( ar ) to prick ( see pique 1) + -ador < Latin -ātor -ator
Explanation
A picador is a bullfighter with a particular job: to jab the bull with a sharp spear, in order to get him angry and riled up. You are only likely to come across the word picador in the context of bullfighting. There are usually two picadors on horseback who poke the bull with lances called picas to get him really mad before his confrontation with the matador, who is the main bullfighter. In Spanish, picador means "pricker" or "piercer," from picar, "to pierce."
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:
He meant he wanted to be a picador with the house’s heritage rather than just aiming for the heart of the nouveau riche.
From New York Times ● Sep. 29, 2011
Captain Canedo, who is still alive, kills a! rejon —that is, he rides first as a picador, then dismounts and finishes his job as an espada.
From Time Magazine Archive
As the jeep pulled back, he saw a picador with a sharper lance astride a well-padded horse nearby and whirled to charge the horse.
From Time Magazine Archive
As Stone comments, "Socrates looks more like a picador enraging a bull than a defendant trying to mollify a jury."
From Time Magazine Archive
Out on the plateau beyond the town employees of the bull-ring exercised picador horses, galloping them stiff-legged on the hard, sun-baked fields behind the bull-ring.
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
The picadores formed in front of him, each with a black or yellow poncha in his left hand, and poising his spear with the right.
From Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. I. by John L. Stephens
The picadores then mounted their horses; but, after a few thrusts of the spear, the bull flinched, and the spectators, indignant that he did not show more fight, cried out, "Saca esa vaca!"
From Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, Vol. I. by John L. Stephens
Some of the picadores galloped out, but a few awaited the coming charge, their long pikes in rest.
From Spanish Highways and Byways by Katharine Lee Bates
They were followed by six picadores on horseback, dressed in leather jerkins and breeches, protected on the right side with bands of iron.
From The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10 Prince Otto Von Bismarck, Count Helmuth Von Moltke, Ferdinand Lassalle by Kuno Francke
At the end of the procession came two picadores, mounted on two sorry steeds, who looked only fit for the knacker, as indeed they were.
From On the Equator by Harry De Windt
He leads his crew not of banderilleros and picadors, but of drink crafters and cooks through flawless passes to a demanding mob, his “domination of the bull.”
From Salon ● Nov. 8, 2025
There are many matadors, picadors, minotaurs, bulls and horses in a new show exploring Picasso and the importance of bullfighting – but also a glimpse of his terrible treatment of women.
From The Guardian ● Apr. 26, 2017
Reported by Maureen Dowd/New York and Steven Holmes/ Los Angeles It was a quiet Sunday as the picadors at all three networks prepared to implant their banderillas in the hides of their talk-show guests.
From Time Magazine Archive
Though she turned away when the picadors lanced the bulls, she watched each pass of the bulls with fascination.
From Time Magazine Archive
Behind them came all the procession, opening out, all striding in step, all the capes furled, everybody with free arms swinging, and behind rode the picadors, their pics rising like lances.
From "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway
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.
