El Dorado
noun
Did you know?
In the early 1500s, Spanish conquistadores heard tales of an Amazonian king who regularly coated his body with gold dust, then plunged into a nearby lake to wash it off while being showered with gold and jewels thrown by his subjects. The Spaniards called the city ruled by this flamboyant monarch El Dorado, Spanish for "gilded one," and the story of the gold-covered king eventually grew into a legend of a whole country paved with gold. These days, El Dorado can also used generically for any place of vast riches, abundance, or opportunity. It is also the name of actual cities in Arkansas and Kansas.
Examples of El Dorado in a Sentence
Ca Wildfire Bot, Sacbee.com, 21 May 2025
Crespi 5, El Dorado 2: The Celts rallied for four runs in the sixth inning.
—Eric Sondheimer, Los Angeles Times, 21 May 2025
Parts of northern, central and southern Arkansas, including Little Rock, Pine Bluff and El Dorado, are at a slight risk of severe weather.
—Remington Miller, Arkansas Online, 20 May 2025
For decades, there had been whispers in guitar circles of a vast trove of twentieth-century guitars, in private hands, somewhere in the tri-state area—an El Dorado of coveted Strats and Les Pauls and Martins of impeccable provenance.
—Nick Paumgarten, New Yorker, 19 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for El Dorado
Cite this Entry
“El Dorado.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/El%20Dorado. Accessed 24 May. 2025.
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