 English vocabulary word of the day, riot, from espressoenglish.net. First let's work on the pronunciation. Riot starts with R, like in the words right, red, and rock. The letter I has the I sound, like in ice, night, and ride. And the final O-T sounds like in the word pilot. Riot has two syllables, and the stress is on the first one. Riot. A riot is a wild and possibly violent disturbance by a large group of people. For example, police are trying to contain the riot. Riot in this case can be a noun referring to the violent disturbance or a verb referring to the action of the people. For example, people are rioting on the street. There's a difference between a protest and a riot. A protest is a public demonstration in opposition to something, and a protest can be peaceful. But a riot is always out of control and may be violent. If you call a person a riot, that means the person is very entertaining or very funny. For example, if you have a friend who tells a lot of great jokes, you could say, he's a riot. Finally, we have an idiomatic expression, to read someone the riot act. That means to give the person a strong scolding or warning because of their bad behavior. For example, after my teenage son threw a party in the house without my permission, I read him the riot act. Don't try to interpret this expression literally. It just means I gave my son a scolding, and I warned him that there would be severe consequences if he behaved badly like this again. Want to learn more words? Sign up for the Vocabulary Builder course where you'll learn hundreds of new vocabulary words. Click the link in the video for free sample lessons or visit espressoenglish.net and click on courses to sign up.