rota
noun
rota
1 American
[roh-tuh]
/ ˈroʊ tə /
noun
-
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
Your local pharmacy should display details of the rota, or you can find details online.
From BBC ● Dec. 19, 2025
She said there needed to be better rota design to ensure staff could rest properly between shifts and improved rest facilities in hospitals.
From BBC ● Apr. 23, 2025
The volunteers work on a four-week rota and take time to cut and sort out all the stories from two copies of each paper while being careful not to duplicate anything.
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2025
He’d shown us a list of chores when we’d first arrived, and the students who were already there—“the veterans,” as Hannah called them—had long since worked out a rota which we kept to conscientiously.
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
"As of right now, still no water and electricity," Lou Rosario, a spokeswoman for the Municipal Operations Center on Rota, confirmed on Tuesday.
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.
