gladiatorial

comparative more gladiatorial · superlative most gladiatorial

1. Of or pertaining to a gladiator.

   Gladiatorial entertainment was common in ancient Rome.

   2 more examples

   "And all the better for yourself if you never enter the gladiatorial arena of public life: you will sacrifice time, health, and talents; you will be paragraphed—probably pelted; you will die of an inflammation, or a consumption; and leave it a debatable point to historians, what was the extent of the injury you did your country."

   1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXI, in Romance and Reality. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 313

   Think of it: On the 250th anniversary of our country’s founding, America’s increasingly senescent president turned the White House lawn into a tacky, bloody gladiatorial arena while capitulating to Iran.

   2026 June 15, Michelle Goldberg, “The UFC 250 Was a Garish Spectacle of American Decline”, in The New York Times, →ISSN