roulette
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
8 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "roulette", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "roulette" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "roulette" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
roulette is aEnglishnoun. It means: 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 ... Pronounced /ɹuːˈlɛt/. Often confused with rosette.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | roulette |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ɹuːˈlɛt/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #17,467 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for roulette is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɹuːˈlɛt/. Corpus data places it at rank #17,467 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for roulette, with forms such as "orulette", "roluette", and "roueltte". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "rosette", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from French roulette (“roulette, little wheel”). The sense "situation with a random chance of incurring serious harm" may be abstracted from Russian roulette. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is roulette, spelled R-O-U-L-E-T-T-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A 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.
- 2An instance of risk-taking, especially when the downside exceeds the upside (contrary to the game of roulette where only the wager is lost).
- 3A small toothed wheel used by engravers to roll over a plate in order to produce rows of dots.
- 4A similar wheel used to roughen the surface of a plate, as in making alterations in a mezzotint.
- 5The locus of a point on a plane curve that rolls without slipping along another fixed plane curve.
- 6Any of the small incisions on a sheet of stamps, used as an alternative to perforations.
- 7A cylindrical curler for the hair.
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.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: orulette,roluette,roueltte,roulete,rouletet,roullette,roultete,rroulette,ruolette
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for roulette
Misspelling Variants of "roulette"
Frequency rank: #17,467 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index: