rota

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Chiefly British A roll call or roster of names.
2. n. Chiefly British A round or rotation of duties.
3. n. Roman Catholic Church A tribunal of prelates that serves as an ecclesiastical court.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A wheel.
2. n. A course, turn, or routine.
3. n. A roll or list; a school-roll, a military roll, a roll of jurors, or the like, showing the order of call or of turns of duty.
4. n. In music, same as round, or any variety of piece in which repeats are frequent.
5. n. A reliquary or other receptacle of circular form, ornamented with a cross whose arms reach the outer rim so that the whole resembles a wheel.
6. n. [capitalized] An ecclesiastical tribunal in the Roman Catholic Church, having its seat at the papal court. It is composed of twelve prelates, called auditors, and was formerly the supreme court of justice and universal court of appeal. It is now divided into two colleges or senates, and has jurisdiction, in the territory of the church, of all suits by appeal and of all matters beneficiary and patrimonial. Owing to the present political position of the papacy, its power is very greatly diminished. There is no appeal from its decisions except to the Pope.
7. n. Same as rote, in either of its senses.

Wiktionary

1. n. UK A schedule that allocates some task, responsibility or (rarely) privilege between a set of people according to a (possibly periodic) calendar.
2. n. music A kind of zither, played like a guitar, used in the Middle Ages in church music.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. An ecclesiastical court of Rome, called also Rota Romana, that takes cognizance of suits by appeal. It consists of twelve members.
2. n. (Eng. Hist.) A short-lived political club established in 1659 by J.Harrington to inculcate the democratic doctrine of election of the principal officers of the state by ballot, and the annual retirement of a portion of Parliament.
3. n. (Mus.) A species of zither, played like a guitar, used in the Middle Ages in church music; -- written also rotta.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (Roman Catholic Church) the supreme ecclesiastical tribunal for cases appealed to the Holy See from diocesan courts
2. n. a roster of names showing the order in which people should perform certain duties