rotunda
Americannoun
-
rotundas
plural
-
a round building, especially one with a dome.
-
a large and high circular hall or room in a building, especially one surmounted by a dome.
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of rotunda
1680–90; alteration of Italian rotonda, noun use of feminine of rotondo < Latin rotundus rotund
Explanation
When making the plans for your new house, consider adding a rotunda, or a round room. It will give the house a grand appearance and also allow you to walk in circles as much as you please. You may have heard the adjective rotund to describe a person with a round shape. Rotunda, with an -a at the end, is a noun that refers to a type of building or room that is round and often has a dome on top. Rotundas are often found as part of large, important buildings such as capitol buildings and museums.
Vocabulary lists containing rotunda
Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library
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Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
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Vocabulary Video Contest (2013) - List 1
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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:
A marvelous frieze chronicling American history, begun by the Italian-American artist Constantino Brumidi, overlooks the rotunda.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Go the Capitol rotunda and look up at the dome, where Constantino Brumidi’s fresco The Apotheosis of Washington, painted during the Civil War, shows Washington in heaven, flanked by goddesses.
From Slate ● Feb. 16, 2026
And it incinerated his white-and-green stable with its stately central rotunda.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2025
Built in 1939 as the Floral Hall, the Ocean Room is a distinctive rotunda building, and for the past 50 years has operated as a night club and function venue.
From BBC ● Apr. 26, 2025
She stood with Scythe Curie in the rotunda, with no appetite to partake of the lavish breakfast spread.
From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman
A famous example was a 1986 column on the Solomon R. Guggenheim’s proposal to expand its iconic Frank Lloyd Wright building by erecting a rectangular tower behind the smaller of the building’s two rotundas.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 7, 2026
Last year for Doors Open Day the Malin Group engineering firm which now inhabits one of the rotundas allowed the public to visit.
From BBC ● Feb. 24, 2024
TV news crews often do live hits and interviews from both rotundas.
From Fox News ● Mar. 23, 2019
Paschina named his Bordeaux blend Octagon, after the shape Jefferson used for the rotundas at Barboursville and at his own Monticello.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 12, 2015
He no longer noticed the distances, the pictures, or the statues in the vaulted dome, but passed through the vast rotundas with no thought of them.
From A Spoil of Office A Story of the Modern West by Hamlin Garland
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.
