roulette
Americannoun
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a game of chance played at a table marked off with numbers from 1 to 36, one or two zeros, and several other sections affording the players a variety of betting opportunities, and having in the center a revolving, dishlike device roulettewheel into which a small ball is spun to come to rest finally in one of the 37 or 38 compartments, indicating the winning number and its characteristics, as odd or even, red or black, and between 1 and 18 or 19 and 36.
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a small wheel, especially one with sharp teeth, mounted in a handle, for making lines of marks, dots, or perforations.
engravers' roulettes; a roulette for perforating sheets of postage stamps.
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Philately. a row of short cuts, in which no paper is removed, made between individual stamps to permit their ready separation.
verb (used with object)
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roulettes,
present (3rd person singular)
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rouletted,
past participle, past
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rouletting
present participle
noun
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a gambling game in which a ball is dropped onto a spinning horizontal wheel divided into 37 or 38 coloured and numbered slots, with players betting on the slot into which the ball will fall
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a toothed wheel for making a line of perforations
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a tiny slit made by such a wheel on a sheet of stamps as an aid to tearing it apart
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a curve generated by a point on one curve rolling on another
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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roulettesimple
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roulettessimple
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have roulettedperfect
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has roulettedperfect
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am roulettingprogressive
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are roulettingprogressive
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is roulettingprogressive
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have been roulettingperfect progressive
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has been roulettingperfect progressive
Past
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roulettedsimple
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had roulettedperfect
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was roulettingprogressive
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were roulettingprogressive
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had been roulettingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of roulette
1725–35; < French, diminutive of rouelle wheel. See rowel
Explanation
Roulette is a gambling game, where a little ball rolls around a wheel and people bet on what number it will land on. Go lucky 7! Outside a casino, roulette can refer to an unnecessarily dangerous gamble. It doesn't take any skill — just a whole lot of luck — to win at roulette. The wheel itself is called a roulette wheel. The game was invented in eighteenth century France, and you can still play it in casinos all over the world (though you have to be over 21 to enter those casinos). Russian roulette is a game of chance where people basically bet their lives. In French, roulette means "small wheel," from the Latin root rota, "wheel."
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas compared fund sponsors’ tactics to “walking up to a roulette table and putting chips on every single number.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026
Spin the roulette wheel, if you like, and none of us will find out.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
"Even if a convoy is 90% effective, which ship owners and crew unions are prepared to play Russian roulette in one of them?" said Clarke.
From BBC ● Mar. 12, 2026
At the time, each Southwest trip was a game of roulette.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 3, 2026
“It’s dangerous, like playing Russian roulette with the volcano,” grumbled Skamania Sheriff Bill Closner.
From "Mountain of Fire" by Rebecca E. F. Barone
Flicks and tricks and roulettes and rondo after , all soft-shoed and swift.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 14, 2013
If America has a Victor Hugo, it is Amy Bloom, whose picaresque novels roam the world, plumb the human heart and send characters into wild roulettes of kismet and calamity.
From Washington Post
Gentlemen are sitting baldheaded in elegant dressing-gowns, while their wigs are being taken out of roulettes.
From English Costume by Dion Clayton Calthrop
The cycloid is the simplest member of the class of curves known as roulettes.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 8 "Cube" to "Daguerre, Louis" by Various
Before the players were aware of it, the construction of the roulettes was amended.
From Memoirs of Life and Literature by W. H. (William Hurrell) Mallock
Stamps thus rouletted have a very ragged edge when torn apart.
From What Philately Teaches A Lecture Delivered before the Section on Philately of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, February 24, 1899 by John N. Luff
There are a number of systems which produce the effect of rouletting in a variety of fancy forms.
From What Philately Teaches A Lecture Delivered before the Section on Philately of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, February 24, 1899 by John N. Luff
There is another form of separation called rouletting, from the French "roulette", a little wheel, its simplest form being produced by a small wheel with an edge of sharp points.
From What Philately Teaches A Lecture Delivered before the Section on Philately of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, February 24, 1899 by John N. Luff
It is called rouletting in 63oblique parallel cuts and consists of a row of short cuts placed obliquely and parallel to each other.
From What Philately Teaches A Lecture Delivered before the Section on Philately of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, February 24, 1899 by John N. Luff
There is still another form of rouletting, which we also show you.
From What Philately Teaches A Lecture Delivered before the Section on Philately of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, February 24, 1899 by John N. Luff
These points receive ink the same as other parts of the surface of the plate and the effect thus produced is called rouletting in colored lines.
From What Philately Teaches A Lecture Delivered before the Section on Philately of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, February 24, 1899 by John N. Luff
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
