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)
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:
Spin the roulette wheel, if you like, and none of us will find out.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
“We can’t play Russian roulette with the destiny of millions of people,” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 4, 2026
"For governments to allow private entities to essentially play Russian roulette with every human being on earth is, in my view, a total dereliction of duty," said Russell, a prominent voice on AI safety.
From Barron's ● Feb. 17, 2026
Iain Jenkins said Eljamel "played Russian roulette" with his spine during the 1999 private operation carried out while he was captain of Dundee United.
From BBC ● Jan. 14, 2026
This might be some sort of roulette game in which I had to guess correctly which one Nelson would come through in order to win his freedom.
From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez
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
Before the players were aware of it, the construction of the roulettes was amended.
From Memoirs of Life and Literature by Mallock, W. H. (William Hurrell)
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
The roulettes could be put in buckle hot, or they could be rolled cold and the whole wig heated.
From Two Centuries of Costume in America, Volume 1 (1620-1820) by Earle, Alice Morse
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 Luff, John N.
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 Luff, John N.
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 Luff, John N.
Here is an example of this rouletting, in a small gauge.
From What Philately Teaches A Lecture Delivered before the Section on Philately of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, February 24, 1899 by Luff, John N.
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 Luff, John N.
Between 1848 and 1854 Archer tried many systems for separating stamps, and, in the latter year, perfected a machine for perforating instead of rouletting the margins of adhesives.
From Peeps at Postage Stamps by Johnson, Stanley Currie
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.
