role

• enPR: rōl
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɹəʊl/, [ɹʷɒʊɫ]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɹol/, /ɹoʊl/, [ɹʷoʊɫ]

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

• (New Zealand, General Australian) IPA^(key): /ɹɐʉl/, [ɹʷɒʊɫ]
• Rhymes: -əʊl
• Homophone: roll

From French rôle, from Middle French rolle, from Old French role, from Medieval Latin rotulus. Doublet of roll and rotulus.

• rôle

role (plural roles)

1. A character or part played by a performer or actor.

   My neighbor was the lead role in last year's village play.

   Her dream was to get a role in a Hollywood movie, no matter how small.

2. The expected behaviour of an individual in a society.

   The role of women has changed significantly in the last century.

3. The function or position of something.

   Local volunteers played an important role in cleaning the beach after the oil spill.

   What role does the wax in your earhole fulfill?

   • 2013 May-June, Katrina G. Claw, “Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3:

     In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.

4. Designation that denotes an associated set of responsibilities, knowledge, skills, and attitudes

   The project manager role is responsible for ensuring that everyone on the team knows and executes his or her assigned tasks.

   • 1939 November 10, “Following The War”, in The Chart‎, volume I, number 1, Joplin, Missouri: Joplin Junior College, page 4, column 1:

     As students all over the United States knuckle down to learning, the rumble of war drums once more proclaims Mars high man in Europe. Discarding morbid curiosity, every student should consider it vitally necessary to get a general picture of the causes, movements, and possible effects of World War II. The average U. S. citizen's knowledge of World War II will probably decide his role in it.

5. (grammar) The function of a word in a phrase.
   • 1984, David M. Perlmutter, Carol G. Rosen, Studies in relational grammar: Volume 2:

     Examining these verbs one by one, what one finds is that Auxiliary Selection does correlate in the expected way with the two kinds of optional transitivity, confirming that with each predicate, one semantic role has a fixed link with initial 1-hood, another with initial 2-hood.

6. (object-oriented programming) In the Raku programming language, a code element akin to an interface, used for composition of classes without adding to their inheritance chain.

• subrole

• → Spanish: rol

role (plural roles)

1. (historical) An ancient unit of quantity, 72 sheets of parchment.

• role on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Orel, Orle, Orël, eorl, lore, orle, relo

• IPA^(key): [ˈrolɛ]

• audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -olɛ
• Hyphenation: ro‧le

Borrowed from German Rolle, from Old French rolle, role (“parchment scroll, inventory”), from Latin rotula, rotulus (“little wheel”), which is a diminutive of rota (“wheel”).[1]

role f

1. role, part (of an actor) [19th c.]

   Synonyms: úloha, part

2. lines (spoken text of an actor playing a part)

   Synonym: part

3. role (e.g. of a person in a society)

   Synonym: úloha

4. (linguistics) role (function of a constituent in a clause)
5. scroll [19th c.]

   Synonym: svitek

Inherited from Old Czech rolí, from Proto-Slavic *orlьja, from *orati.[2]

role f

1. (obsolete, literary) field (area to grow crops) [14th c.]

   Synonym: pole

2. old unit of field measurement
3. (obsolete, literary) area, domain (of activity)

   Synonyms: obor, okruh

   • 1910, Antonín Zoglmann, “Paměti starého učitele. (II.)”, in Český lid, volume XIX, Praha: F. Šimáček, pages 412–418:

     […] horlivý, tichý pracovník na roli školské […]

     […] avid, quiet worker in the domain of education […]

• role in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
• role in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989
• role in Internetová jazyková příručka

• orel, orle

role

1. inflection of rolar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

role oblique singular, m (oblique plural roles, nominative singular roles, nominative plural role)

1. roll; scroll (rolled up document)

• → English: roll
• French: rôle
  • → English: role

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (role, supplement)

• IPA^(key): /ˈrɔ.lɛ/
• Rhymes: -ɔlɛ
• Syllabification: ro‧le

role

1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of rola

• role in Polish dictionaries at PWN

role

1. inflection of rolar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

role

1. inflection of rolar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative