Matador
In Spain and other Spanish-speaking coutries, the torero (roughly "bull handler") or matador ("killer") is the main performer of bullfighting, the person who taunts and finally kills the bull. The role is also called toreador in English (and in Bizet's opera Carmen), but almost never used in Spain or in Latin America. A famous matador, arguably the greatest of all time, was Juan Belmonte.
The term is also used in the sport of rodeo as a substitution for the less-dignified "rodeo clown".
The word is also a well-known indie rock label (see Matador Records), and the name of a military truck built by Associated Equipment Company from 1938 to 1945.
Matador was the title of a 1987 musical based on the story of bullfighter El Cordobes.
The Matador mystique
In bullfighting, it occasionally happens that the matador is instead killed by the bull. This possibility is said to be central to the nature and appeal of bullfighting.
The American writer Ernest Hemingway aspired to be a matador. His novel The Sun Also Rises has autobiographical elements and includes bullfighting themes.
See also:
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