# roulette
## English
### Etymology

Borrowed from French roulette (“roulette, little wheel”). The sense "situation with a random chance of incurring serious harm" may be abstracted from Russian roulette.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ɹuːˈlɛt/
* Audio (Southern England):(file)
* Rhymes: -ɛt

### Noun

roulette (countable and uncountable, plural roulettes)
* (uncountable) A game of chance in which a small ball is made to move round rapidly on a circle divided off into numbered (usually red and black) spaces. When the ball stops, it indicates the result of a variety of wagers permitted by the game.
    Synonym: (historical) roly-poly
* (uncountable, figuratively) An instance of risk-taking, especially when the downside exceeds the upside (contrary to the game of roulette where only the wager is lost).
** 1982 April 28, Donna Hilts, “TV Report On Vaccine Stirs Bitter Controversy”, in Washington Post:Doctors and health officials said that the WRC-TV documentary, "DPT: Vaccine Roulette," emphasized the risks of the vaccine while ignoring the dangers of the disease, which has been almost wiped out in this country.
** 2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 290:They would all rather take their chances with the existing policy-making roulette rather than follow process discipline.
** 2020 November 2, Adam Finn quoted by Alessandra Scotto Di Santolo in Daily Express:
    By contrast giving treatments open-label slows everything down by leading us up blind alleys while playing roulette with our patients' lives.
* (countable) A small toothed wheel used by engravers to roll over a plate in order to produce rows of dots.
* (countable) A similar wheel used to roughen the surface of a plate, as in making alterations in a mezzotint.
* (countable, geometry) The locus of a point on a plane curve that rolls without slipping along another fixed plane curve.
* (philately) Any of the small incisions on a sheet of stamps, used as an alternative to perforations.
* A cylindrical curler for the hair.

#### Derived terms

* Delaunay roulette
* pepper roulette
* roulette table
* roulette wheel
* Russian roulette
* Sturm roulette
* Vatican roulette

#### Related terms

* roll

#### Translations
### Verb

roulette (third-person singular simple present roulettes, present participle rouletting, simple past and past participle rouletted)
* To separate or decorate by incisions made with a small toothed wheel.
    to roulette a sheet of postage stamps

### See also

* cycloid
* epicycloid
* hypocycloid
* Wikipedia article on roulette, the game
* Wikipedia article on roulettes in geometry

### References

* “roulette”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

## French
### Etymology

From rouler +‎ -ette.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ʁu.lɛt/
* Audio:(file)

### Noun

roulette f (plural roulettes)
* small wheel
* caster, castor
* (geometry, archaic) cycloid
* roulette (game)
* roulette wheel
* (engraving) roulette
* roller
    patin à roulettes ― roller skating
* (dentistry) dentist drill
* pastry roller

#### Synonyms

* rouette

#### Derived terms

* comme sur des roulettes
* patin à roulettes
* patinage à roulettes
* planche à roulettes
* roulette de défilement
* roulette de timbres
* roulette russe

#### Descendants

* → Catalan: ruleta
* → Czech: ruleta
* → Danish: roulette, roulet
* → English: roulette
* → Galician: ruleta
* → German: Roulette (see there for further descendants)
* → Italian: roulette
* → Japanese: ルーレット
* → Norwegian Bokmål: rulett
* → Norwegian Nynorsk: rulett
* → Portuguese: roleta
* → Spanish: ruleta
* → Swedish: roulett
* → Thai: รูเล็ตต์ (ruu-lèt)

### References

* WordReference, roulette

### Further reading

* “roulette”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

## Italian
### Etymology

Borrowed from French roulette.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ruˈlɛt/
* Rhymes: -ɛt

### Noun

roulette f (invariable)
* roulette (game of chance)

#### Derived terms

* roulette russa (“Russian roulette”)

### References

* ↑ roulette in Luciano Canepari, Dizionario di Pronuncia Italiana (DiPI)

### Anagrams

* tutelerò