roulette

• POS: Noun, Verb (transitive)
• HYPHEN: rou=lette

CIDE DICTIONARY

roulette, n. [F., properly, a little wheel or ball. See Rouleau, Roll.].

•  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.  [1913 Webster]
•  A small toothed wheel used by engravers to roll over a plate in order to order to produce rows of dots.  [1913 Webster]
•  the curve traced by any point in the plane of a given curve when the latter rolls, without sliding, over another fixed curve. See Cycloid, and Epycycloid.  [1913 Webster]
•  A small toothed wheel used to make short incisions in paper, as a sheet of postage stamps to facilitate their separation.  [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

roulette, v. t. 

 To make short incisions in with a roulette; to separate by incisions made with a roulette; as, to roulette a sheet of postage stamps.  [Webster 1913 Suppl.]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

roulette, n.
1 a gambling game using a table in which a ball is dropped on to a revolving wheel with numbered compartments, players betting on the number at which the ball comes to rest.
2 Math. a curve generated by a point on a curve rolling on another.
3 a a revolving toothed wheel used in engraving. b a similar wheel for making perforations between postage stamps in a sheet.

Derivative

rouletted adj. (in sense 3b).

Etymology

F, dimin. of rouelle f. LL rotella dimin. of L rota wheel

THESAURUS

roulette

bingo, card games, chuck and toss, chuck farthing, chuck-a-luck, crack-loo, crap game, crap shooting, craps, fan-tan, hazard, horse racing, keno, lotto, pinball, pitch and toss, policy, rouge et noir, shell game, sweepstake, sweepstakes, the numbers, the numbers game, trente-et-quarante

ROGET THESAURUS

roulette

Chance

N chance, lot, fate, luck, good luck, mascot, speculation, venture, stake, game of chance, mere shot, random shot, blind bargain, leap in the dark, pig in a poke, fluke, potluck, faro bank, flyer, limit, uncertainty, uncertainty principle, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, drawing lots, sortilegy, sortition, sortes, sortes Virgilianae, rouge et noir, hazard, ante, chuck-a-luck, crack-loo, craps, faro, roulette, pitch and toss, chuck, farthing, cup tossing, heads or tails cross and pile, poker-dice, wager, bet, betting, gambling, the turf, gaming house, gambling house, betting house, bucket shop, gambling joint, totalizator, totalizer, hell, betting ring, dice, dice box, gambler, gamester, man of the turf, adventurer, dicer, fortuitous, unintentional, unintended, accidental, not meant, undesigned, purposed, unpremeditated, unforeseen, uncontemplated, never thought of, random, indiscriminate, promiscuous, undirected, aimless, driftless, designless, purposeless, causeless, without purpose, possible, unforeseeable, unpredictable, chancy, risky, speculative, dicey, randomly, by chance, fortuitously, unpredictably, unforeseeably, casually, unintentionally, unwittingly, en passant, by the way, incidentally, as it may happen, at random, at a venture, at haphazard, acierta errando, dextro tempore, fearful concatenation of circumstances, fortuitous combination of circumstances, le jeu est le fils d'avarice et le pere du desespo, the happy combination of fortuitous circumstances, the fortuitous or casual concourse of atoms, God does not play dice with the universe, chance, indetermination, accident, fortune, hazard, hap, haphazard, chance medley, random, luck, raccroc, casualty, contingence, adventure, hit, fate, equal chance, lottery, tombola, toss up, turn of the table, turn of the cards, hazard of the die, chapter of accidents, fickle finger of fate, cast of the dice, throw of the dice, heads or tails, flip of a coin, wheel of Fortune, sortes, sortes Virgilianae, probability, possibility, odds, long odds, run of luck, accidentalness, main chance, odds on, favorable odds, contingency, dependence (uncertainty), situation (circumstance), statistics, theory of Probabilities, theory of Chances, bookmaking, assurance, speculation, gaming, casual, fortuitous, accidental, adventitious, causeless, incidental, contingent, uncaused, undetermined, indeterminate, random, statistical, possible, unintentional, by chance, accidentally, by accident, casually, perchance, for aught one knows, as good would have it, as bad would have it, as luck would have it, as ill-luck would have it, as chance would have it, as it may be, as it may chance, as it may turn up, as it may happen, as the case may be, grasps the skirts of happy chance, the accident of an accident, There but for the grace of God go I.