Roulette
nounA gambling game in which a ball is spun on a revolving wheel divided into numbered pockets.
How to spell roulette
8 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce roulette
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does roulette mean?
- nounA gambling game in which a ball is spun on a revolving wheel divided into numbered pockets.
Roulette in a sentence
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He lost most of his holiday budget at the roulette table.
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The casino added two more roulette wheels for the weekend crowd.
Where does roulette come from?
Language of origin: French
This word comes straight from French, where roulette means 'little wheel'. It is the diminutive of the older French rouelle, 'small wheel', which in turn descends from the Latin rotella, a little wheel, formed from rota, the ordinary Latin word for 'wheel'. The same rota lies behind a whole family of English words including 'rotate', 'rotary', and 'rotund'. The gambling sense, naming the spinning wheel on which a ball settles into a numbered pocket, became popular in eighteenth century France and was borrowed into English around the 1740s. Because the word was taken over wholesale from French, English kept the French spelling intact, which is why the doubled 'l', the single 't' before the ending, and the silent French '-ette' all trip people up even though the word sounds like a simple 'roo-let'.
How the word is built
- roul- (from French rouler: to roll)
- -ette (diminutive suffix: little)
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