- a variation of rote.
rota
1 Americannoun
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Chiefly British.
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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.
noun
noun
noun
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
Amissah and his Ghanaian crewmates had devised a secret rota to get some sleep.
From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2026
"This would require significant investment in interventional radiology, renal services, and the establishment of a bleeding rota," a statement from Guckian said.
From BBC ● Jan. 14, 2026
Among the duties mentioned was a rota for cooking and cleaning and walking his dog, Badger, along with the instruction that members of the team should do "anything" Brain asked for.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2025
We had to maintain a strict rota to determine whose turn it was to play the Federals, as no one wanted to enact their part.
From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
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The Rota mayor's office later issued the all-clear to residents but told people to be careful of live fallen power lines, unstable buildings, floods, and debris on roads.
From Barron's ● Jul. 7, 2026
Earlier in March, Sánchez said Spain had denied the US use of the two jointly run military bases at Rota and Morón, both in Andalusia.
From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2026
US forces use the Rota naval base and Moron air base in southern Spain under an agreement signed in 1953 under the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.
From Barron's ● Mar. 4, 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
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
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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.