Role

How to spell role

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce role

What does role mean?

1. nounThe function, part, or position that a person or thing has in a particular situation.
2. nounA character or part played by an actor or performer.

Role in a sentence

• Her new role at the company involves managing three teams.

• She landed the leading role in the new stage production.

• Diet plays a major role in long-term health.

• He prepared for the role by studying the historical figure for months.

Where does role come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes from the French rôle, which originally meant a roll of parchment or paper. In the theatres of the 1600s, an actor's part was written out on such a rolled-up sheet, so the rôle came to mean the part itself rather than the paper. French had built the word from the Latin rotulus, a diminutive of rota meaning 'wheel', because a scroll was something you wheeled or rolled up. English borrowed it in the early seventeenth century, keeping the theatrical sense and later widening it to mean any function or position a person fills. The shared origin with 'roll' (also from rotulus) is exactly why the two are confused: 'role' kept the French single-l spelling, while 'roll' took the doubled English form.

How the word is built

• role (from French rôle: a roll of paper listing an actor's lines)

Words that sound like role

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• roll: To move along a surface by turning over and over, or to cause something to do so.