a game of chance played at a table marked off with numbers from 1 to 36, one or two zeros, and several other sections affording the players a variety of betting opportunities, and having in the center a revolving, dishlike device (roulette wheel) into which a small ball is spun to come to rest finally in one of the 37 or 38 compartments, indicating the winning number and its characteristics, as odd or even, red or black, and between 1 and 18 or 19 and 36.
2.
a small wheel, esp. one with sharp teeth, mounted in a handle, for making lines of marks, dots, or perforations: engravers' roulettes; a roulette for perforating sheets of postage stamps.
3.
Philately. a row of short cuts, in which no paper is removed, made between individual stamps to permit their ready separation.
–verb (used with object)
4.
to mark, impress, or perforate with a roulette.
Origin: 1725–35; < F, dim. of rouelle wheel. See rowel
A gambling game in which the players bet on which slot of a rotating disk a small ball will come to rest in.
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.
Any of the short consecutive incisions made between individual stamps in a sheet for easy separation.
tr.v.
rou·lett·ed, rou·lett·ing, rou·lettes To mark or divide with a roulette.
[French, from Old French ruelete, feminine diminutive of ruele, diminutive of roue, wheel, from Latin rota; see ret- in Indo-European roots.]