The Collaborative International Dictionary
bullfighting \bullfighting\ n. the activity at a bullfight.
Wiktionary
alt. A performance art popular in Spain and many former Spanish colonies in which a matador manipulates and ultimately kills a bull at close range. n. A performance art popular in Spain and many former Spanish colonies in which a matador manipulates and ultimately kills a bull at close range.
WordNet
n. the activity at a bullfight
Wikipedia
Bullfighting ( or ; or ), also known as tauromachia or tauromachy ( , ; from "bull-fight"), is a traditional spectacle of Spain, Portugal, parts of southern France and some Latin American countries ( Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Peru), in which one or more bulls are fought by humans in a bullring. Although it can be defined as a blood sport, within the areas where it is practiced it is not considered a sport, since there are no elements of competition. Instead, it is considered a highly ritualized cultural event and art form which some see as deeply tied to Hispanic culture and identity.
The bullfight, as it is practiced today, involves professional toreros (of whom the most senior, who actually kills the bull, is called a matador) who execute various formal moves which have a meaning, or at least a name, according to the bullfighter's style or school. It has been alleged that toreros seek to elicit inspiration and art from their work and an emotional connection with the crowd transmitted through the bull. The close proximity places the bullfighter at risk of being gored or trampled by the bull. After the bull has been hooked multiple times behind the shoulder by other toreros in the arena, the bullfight usually concludes with the killing of the bull, ideally by a single sword thrust, which is called the estocada. Sometimes, the life of the bull is spared due to his braveness (indulto); once the animal has been treated, it is returned to live in the dehesa. Such pardons are nevertheless rare. In Portugal, the finale consists of a tradition called the pega, where men (forcados) try to grab and hold the bull by its horns when it runs at them.
A special breed of cattle is used for bullfighting, and the bulls involved must be bred in large ranches, in conditions as similar as possible to the way they would behave in the wild.
There are many historic fighting venues in the Iberian Peninsula, France and Latin America. The largest venue of its kind is the Plaza México in central Mexico City, which seats 48,000 people, and the oldest are the Plazas of Béjar and Ronda, in the Spanish provinces of Ávila and Málaga.
Usage examples of "bullfighting".
Which is how I came to be standing in the middle of the Plaza de Toros in Madrid in a fancy bullfighting outfit while El Diablo stared at me through his beady little eyes and pawed the dirt.
Smash had dragged me in, but when I got there I found a bunch of guys in bullfighting outfits all laughing their heads off.
Jourdian had wanted to know everything about bullfighting when his parents returned from the trip.
The walls were covered with bullfighting posters and a few of his own paintings, but pride of place was given to a bloodstained bullfighting cape that was cut into spokelike shadows by the bright wheel lamp that hung between the beams of the ceiling.
Both Jake, who has aficion, and Hemingway, who loved bullfights and wrote a book about them called Death in the Afternoon, believed, at least superficially, that bullfighting had value.
Crush right quick, and he started jabbering something in Spanish and pointing at me, and by the time I'd finished taking a couple of bows and walked back to the dressing room there were a passel of police waiting there for me, and they took me down to the local calaboose and I spent the night there, still in my bullfighting outfit.
Beyond the beachfront houses occupied by the expatriates were several dusty streets lined with similar houses, and beyond them rose a cliff of ocher rock surmounted by a number of villas, one of which had been rented by an English actor who was in the area shooting a bullfighting movie: I had been earning my living of late as an extra on the film, receiving the equivalent of five dollars a day and lunch (also an equivalent value, consisting of a greasy sandwich and soda pop).