Etymology: < Spanish (originally American Spanish) rodeo place or enclosure where cattle are rounded up (1802), cattle round-up (although this sense is first attested later: 1843 or earlier), specific uses of rodeo act of going round (first half of the 13th cent.) < rodear to go round, to cause to go round (first half of the 13th cent.; < classical Latin rotāre (see rotate v.) + Spanish -ear , suffix forming verbs, especially frequentative verbs). In quot. 1819 at sense 2 via French †rodeo round-up (1819 in the passage translated; rare before 20th cent.; now rodéo, and usually in sense ‘public exhibition or competition demonstrating traditional cowboy skills’ (1923 in this sense, after English)).The stress of the Spanish word is on the penultimate syllable. In English, pronunciations closely resembling the Spanish pronunciation are frequent in areas of former Spanish settlement in the western United States, especially in California and the southwest. Alongside these, Dict. Amer. Regional Eng. (at cited word) records various naturalized pronunciations which show shift of stress to the first syllable (so especially in Midwestern and eastern states) and/or substitution of /i/ for Spanish /e/ or its naturalized equivalent /eɪ/ in the second syllable.

Etymology: < rodeo n.