- a gambling game played by rolling a small ball around a shallow bowl with an inner disk (roulette wheel) revolving in the opposite direction: the ball finally comes to rest in one of the red or black, numbered compartments into which this disk is divided, thus determining the winning bets
- a small toothed wheel attached to a handle, for making rows of marks or dots, as in engraving, or incisions, as between postage stamps
- a series of small, consecutive incisions made in the paper between the stamps in a sheet of stamps, to facilitate their separation
Origin of rouletteFrench ; from Old French roelette, diminutive of roele, small wheel ; from Late Latin rotella, diminutive ; from Classical Latin rota, wheel: see roll
- A gambling game in which the players bet on which slot of a rotating disk a small ball will come to rest in.
- a. A small toothed disk of tempered steel attached to a handle and used to make rows of dots, slits, or perforations, as in engraving or on a sheet of postage stamps.b. Any of the short consecutive incisions made between individual stamps in a sheet for easy separation.
transitive verbrou·lett·ed, rou·lett·ing, rou·lettes
Origin of rouletteFrench, from Old French ruelete, feminine diminutive of ruele, diminutive of roue, wheel, from Latin rota; see ret- in Indo-European roots.
(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 red and black spaces, the one on which it stops indicating the result of a variety of wagers permitted by the game.
- (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.
- (stamp-collecting) any of the small incisions on a sheet of stamps, used as an alternative to perforations.
French roulette, roulette, little wheel