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roulette

roulette

noun roo-LET Rare

Origin: French 'roue' (wheel) + diminutive '-ette'

Also means

small wheel

Usage Note

Roulette literally means 'little wheel' and covers the casino game, a small rolling caster (as on furniture), a dentist's drill wheel, and a pastry-cutting wheel. The phrase jouer à la roulette russe (to play Russian roulette) is a fixed idiom for extreme risk-taking. The object sense (furniture castor) is written une roulette and is common in everyday speech.

Examples

"Il a tout misé au jeu de roulette."

Natural Translation

He bet everything on roulette.

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