role

See also: rolé and rôle

English

Alternative forms

• rôle

Etymology

From French rôle.

Pronunciation

• enPR: rōl
• IPA^(key): /ɹəʊl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊl
• Homophone: roll

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 rôle 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.

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.

Translations

character or part

• Arabic: دَوْر‎ m (dawr)
• Belarusian: ро́ля f (rólja)
• Bulgarian: ро́ля (bg) f (rólja)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 角色 (zh) (juésè), 角 (zh) (jué)

• Czech: role (cs) f
• Finnish: rooli (fi)
• French: rôle (fr) m
• Georgian: როლი (roli)
• German: Rolle (de) f
• Greek: ρόλος (el) m (rólos)
• Hindi: भूमिका (hi) f (bhūmikā)
• Hungarian: szerep (hu)
• Italian: ruolo (it) m
• Japanese: 役 (ja) (やく, yaku), 役割 (ja) (やくわり, yakuwari), 役柄 (やくがら, yakugara)
• Korean: 역할 (ko) (yeokhal)
• Kurdish:

  Kurmanji: dewr (ku) f

  Sorani: دەور‎ (dewr)

• Macedonian: ролjа f (rolja), улога f (uloga)
• Norwegian: rolle m
• Persian: رل‎ (fa) (rol)
• Portuguese: papel (pt) m
• Russian: роль (ru) f (rolʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: улога f, рола f

  Roman: uloga (sh) f, rola (sh) f

• Slovak: rola f
• Slovene: vloga f
• Spanish: papel (es) m
• Telugu: పాత్ర (te) (pātra)
• Thai: บทบาท (th) (bòt-bàat)
• Turkish: rol (tr)
• Ukrainian: роль f (rolʹ)
• Vietnamese: vai (vi), vai trò (vi)
• Yiddish: ראָלע‎ f (role)

the expected behavior of an individual in a society

• French: rôle (fr) m
• Georgian: როლი (roli), ფუნქცია (ka) (punkcia)
• German: Rolle (de) f
• Greek: ρόλος (el) m (rólos)
• Indonesian: peranan (id)
• Norwegian: rolle m
• 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
• Yiddish: ראָלע‎ f (role)

the function or position of something

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 任務 (zh), 任务 (zh) (rènwu)

• French: rôle (fr)
• German: Rolle (de) f, Aufgabe (de) f, Funktion (de) f
• Greek: ρόλος (el) m (rólos)
• Indonesian: peran (id), tugas (id)
• Italian: ruolo (it)
• Japanese: 役 (ja) (やく, yaku)
• Korean: 역 (ko) (yeok), 직무 (ko) (jingmu)
• Norwegian: rolle m

• 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)
• Turkish: işlev (tr), görev (tr), rol (tr)
• Yiddish: ראָלע‎ f (role)

(grammar) the function of a word in a phrase

• French: fonction (fr) f
• Greek: ρόλος (el) m (rólos)

• Portuguese: função (pt) f, papel (pt) m

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Catalan: ^{(please verify)} rol m
• Icelandic: ^{(please verify)} hlutverki

• Kurdish: ^{(please verify)} rol f

Derived terms

• role-based
• roleless
• roleplay

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”).

Noun

role f

1. role, part (of an actor) [19th c.]
2. lines (spoken text of an actor playing a part)
3. role (e. g. of a person in a society)
4. (linguistics) role (function of a constituent in a clause)
5. scroll [19th c.]

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

Synonyms

• (of an actor): úloha, part
• (text): part
• (in a society): úloha
• (scroll): svitek

Etymology 2

From Proto-Slavic *orlьja, from*orati.

Noun

role f

1. (obsolete, literary) field (area to grow crops) [14th c.]
2. old unit of field measurement
3. (obsolete, literary) area, domain (of activity)
   • 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

• rolník
• rolnický
• rolnictví

Synonyms

• (in agriculture): pole
• (domain): obor, okruh

Anagrams

• orel
• orle

Further reading

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

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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 (borrowed)
• French: rôle
  • English: role (borrowed)

References

• (fr) 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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Portuguese

Verb

role

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of rolar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of rolar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of rolar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of rolar

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Spanish

Verb

role

1. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of rolar.
2. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of rolar.
3. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of rolar.
4. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of rolar.