El Dorado

noun

El Do·ra·do ˌel-də-ˈrä-(ˌ)dō

-ˈrā-

: a city or country of fabulous riches held by 16th century explorers to exist in South America

: a place of fabulous wealth or opportunity

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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

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Her next novel, El Dorado Drive, will be released by Penguin Random House in June. —Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 19 Mar. 2025 Heather Orchard, an immunization specialist and public health nurse with El Dorado County Public Health, said despite the rural county’s low vaccination rates, the risk of a measles outbreak is less likely than in larger, more populated counties. —Hannah Wiley, Los Angeles Times, 19 Mar. 2025 The El Dorado Fire, which burned more than 20,000 acres, was inadvertently started by a gender-reveal pyrotechnic display. —Bay Area News Group, The Mercury News, 14 Mar. 2025 The Lancers were eliminated by El Dorado in five sets in the second round of the CIF-SS Division 3 playoffs last season. —David Delgado, Orange County Register, 13 Mar. 2025 See All Example Sentences for El Dorado