picador
Americannoun
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picadors,
plural
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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
Unamuno places guilt as deftly as a picador against whose fearful horse's flank the blundering bull of social judgment charges.
From Time Magazine Archive
Turtle At Barcelona, one Sebastian Anaro Anzarez, "a former picador," entered a hotel, ordered cold-turtle soup.
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
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 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
When this was fairly secured, all fell back, and the picadores, mounted, and with their spears poised, took their places in the ring.
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
The fight being ended, the picadores and the rest of the troop withdrew to the little chapel, to return thanks for their escape.
From The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II by Various
These refuges were little used, however, except by the underlings, the capadores, or by capsized picadores; espadas and banderilleros disdained them.
From The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier by Edgar Beecher Bronson
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
Later, while dismounted picadors are getting over the fence, the capaderos engage the bull's attention until the coming of the banderilleros.
From Time Magazine Archive
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
Back of them were their people, and behind the banderilleros, back in the passageway and in the open space of the corral, I saw the picadors.
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.
