role

role

See also: rolé, rolę, and rôle

English

Pronunciation

• 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

Etymology 1

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

Alternative forms

• rôle

Noun

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.

Hyponyms

• subrole

Derived terms

• role-based
• roleless
• roleplay
• role reversal

Descendants

• → Spanish: rol

Translations

character or part

Albanian: rol (sq) m Arabic: دَوْر‎ (ar) m (dawr) Armenian: դեր (hy) (der) Azerbaijani: rol (az) Belarusian: ро́ля f (rólja) Bengali: ভূমিকা (bn) (bhūmika) Bulgarian: ро́ля (bg) f (rólja) Burmese: အခန်း (my) (a.hkan:) Catalan: paper (ca) m Chinese: Mandarin: 角色 (zh) (juésè), 角 (zh) (jué) Czech: role (cs) f Danish: rolle c Dutch: rol (nl) m or f Estonian: roll (et) Finnish: rooli (fi), osa (fi) French: rôle (fr) m Georgian: როლი (roli) German: Rolle (de) f Greek: ρόλος (el) m (rólos) Hebrew: תַּפְקִיד‎ (he) m (tafqíd) Hindi: भूमिका (hi) f (bhūmikā) Hungarian: szerep (hu) Irish: ról m Italian: ruolo (it) m Japanese: 役 (ja) (やく, yaku), 役割 (ja) (やくわり, yakuwari), 役柄 (ja) (やくがら, yakugara) Kazakh: рөл (röl) Khmer: តួ (km) (tuə) Korean: 역할(役割) (ko) (yeokhal) Kurdish: Central Kurdish: دەور‎ (ku) (dewr) Northern Kurdish: dewr (ku) f Kyrgyz: роль (rolʹ) Lao: ບົດບາດ (bot bāt) Latvian: loma f Lithuanian: rolė f, vaidmuo m Macedonian: ролја f (rolja), улога f (uloga) Malay: peranan Mongolian: Cyrillic: үүрэг (mn) (üüreg) Norwegian: Bokmål: rolle m or f Pashto: رول‎ (ps) m (rol), نقش‎ (ps) m (naqš) Persian: رل‎ (fa) (rol), نقش‎ (fa) (naqš) Polish: rola (pl) f Portuguese: papel (pt) m Romanian: rol (ro) n Russian: роль (ru) f (rolʹ) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: у̏лога f, ро́ла f Roman: ȕloga (sh) f, róla (sh) f Slovak: rola f Slovene: vloga f Spanish: papel (es) m Swedish: roll (sv) c Tajik: рол (tg) (rol), нақш (naqš) Tatar: роль (rol’) Telugu: పాత్ర (te) (pātra) Thai: บทบาท (th) (bòt-bàat) Turkish: rol (tr) Turkmen: rol Ukrainian: роль f (rolʹ) Urdu: کردار‎ (kirdār) Uyghur: رول‎ (rol) Uzbek: rol (uz) Vietnamese: vai (vi), vai trò (vi) Yiddish: ראָלע‎ f (role)

the expected behavior of an individual in a society

Armenian: դեր (hy) (der) Catalan: rol (ca) m Finnish: asema (fi), rooli (fi) French: rôle (fr) m Georgian: როლი (roli), ფუნქცია (ka) (punkcia) German: Rolle (de) f Greek: ρόλος (el) m (rólos) Indonesian: peranan (id) Irish: ról m Norwegian: rolle m Polish: rola (pl) f Portuguese: função (pt) f, papel (pt) m Russian: роль (ru) f (rolʹ) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: улога f Roman: uloga (sh) f Slovene: vloga f Spanish: rol (es) m Swedish: roll (sv) c Thai: บทบาท (th) (bòt-bàat) Yiddish: ראָלע‎ f (role)

the function or position of something

Armenian: դեր (hy) (der), պաշտոն (hy) (pašton) Catalan: paper (ca) m Chinese: Mandarin: 任務／任务 (zh) (rènwu) Finnish: virka (fi), rooli (fi), osa (fi) French: rôle (fr) German: Rolle (de) f, Aufgabe (de) f, Funktion (de) f Greek: ρόλος (el) m (rólos) Indonesian: peran (id), tugas (id) Irish: ról m Italian: ruolo (it) Japanese: 役 (ja) (やく, yaku) Korean: 역 (ko) (yeok), 직무 (ko) (jingmu) Norwegian: rolle m Occitan: ròtle (oc) m Polish: rola (pl) f, funkcja (pl) f, pozycja (pl) f Portuguese: função (pt) f, papel (pt) m Russian: до́лжность (ru) f (dólžnostʹ) Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: улога f Roman: uloga (sh) f Slovene: vloga f Spanish: papel (es) Swedish: roll (sv) c Turkish: işlev (tr), görev (tr), rol (tr) Yiddish: ראָלע‎ f (role)

(grammar) the function of a word in a phrase

Catalan: funció (ca) f French: fonction (fr) f Greek: ρόλος (el) m (rólos) Kazakh: рөл (röl) Polish: funkcja (pl) f Portuguese: função (pt) f, papel (pt) m Swedish: funktion (sv) c

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Icelandic: (please verify) hlutverki Kurdish: Northern Kurdish: (please verify) rol (ku) f

Noun

role (plural roles)

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

References

• role on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

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

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Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈrolɛ]

• audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -olɛ
• Hyphenation: ro‧le

Etymology 1

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]

Noun

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

Declension

Declension of role

	singular	plural
nominative	role	role
genitive	role	rolí
dative	roli	rolím
accusative	roli	role
vocative	role	role
locative	roli	rolích
instrumental	rolí	rolemi

Derived terms

• rolička

Related terms

• rolovat
• roláda

Etymology 2

From Proto-Slavic *orlьja, from*orati.[2]

Noun

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, page 412–418:

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

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

Declension

Declension of role

	singular	plural
nominative	role	role
genitive	role	rolí
dative	roli	rolím
accusative	roli	role
vocative	role	role
locative	roli	rolích
instrumental	rolí	rolemi

Derived terms

• rolička

Related terms

• rolnický
• rolnictví
• rolník

 

Further reading

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

References

1. "role¹" in Jiří Rejzek, Český etymologický slovník, Leda, 2015, →ISBN, page 598.
2. "role²" in Jiří Rejzek, Český etymologický slovník, Leda, 2015, →ISBN, page 598.

Anagrams

• orel, orle

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Old French

Noun

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

1. roll; scroll (rolled up document)

Descendants

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

References

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

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Polish

Pronunciation

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

Noun

role

1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of rola

Further reading

• role in Polish dictionaries at PWN

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Portuguese

Verb

role

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

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Spanish

Verb

role

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