Word.ws English Dictionary

been to the rodeo

been to the rodeo verb: been exposed to conmen and hucksters; experienced.

Verb

been to the rodeo

  1. (idiomatic) Been exposed to conmen and hucksters; experienced.
    • Some years ago I was talking to a ten-year-old boy who had been to the Rodeo. He was a lad whom most casual observers would readily have called tough.1950, Melbourne S. Applegate, Helping Boys in Trouble: The Layman in Boy Guidance, page 35
    • I'm a man past his prime who's been to the rodeo and back, as they say. I've been an actor, a bartender, a maitre d', and a hustler, without much success at any of them.2002, Vincent Lardo, Lawrence Sanders, McNally's Chance

Questions about been to the rodeo

What does been to the rodeo mean?
Been to the rodeo means been exposed to conmen and hucksters; experienced.
What part of speech is been to the rodeo?
Been to the rodeo is a verb.

Words near been to the rodeo in the dictionary

  1. been the worse for drink
  2. been there
  3. been there, done that
  4. been there, done that, bought the T-shirt
  5. been there, done that, got the T-shirt
  6. been to the rodeo
  7. been used to
  8. been with
  9. been wrong
  10. beena
  11. Beenaafushi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: been to the rodeo (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-been to the rodeo.ogg.

Cite this entry: “been to the rodeo.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/been_to_the_rodeo. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.