role

See also: rolé, rolę, and rôle

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: rōl
• IPA^(key): /ɹəʊl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• 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 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.

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

Translations

character or part

• Arabic: دَوْر (ar) 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:

  Sorani: دەور (dewr)

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Macedonian: ролја 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
• Swedish: roll (sv) c
• 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)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: улога f

  Roman: uloga (sh) f

• Slovene: vloga f
• Spanish: rol (es) m
• Swedish: roll (sv) c
• Yiddish: ראָלע f (role)

the function or position of something

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 任務／任务 (zh) (rènwù), 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
• Occitan: ròtle (oc) m
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• 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

• French: fonction (fr) f
• Greek: ρόλος (el) m (rólos)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• 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

• Catalan: ^{(please verify)} rol (ca) m
• Icelandic: ^{(please verify)} hlutverki
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Kurdish:

Etymology 2

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 (deprecated template usage) [etyl] German Rolle, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old French rolle, role (“parchment scroll, inventory”), from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] 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.]

Synonyms

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

Derived terms

• rolička

Related terms

• rolovat
• roláda

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, pages 412–418:

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

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

Synonyms

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

Derived terms

• rolička

Related terms

• rolník
• rolnický
• rolnictví

Anagrams

• orel
• orle

Further reading

• Template:R:PSJC
• Template:R:SSJC

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Old French

Noun

role oblique singular, 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/

Noun

role

1. nominative/accusative/vocative plural of rola

Further reading

• Template:R:PWN

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Portuguese

Verb

role

1. Template:pt-verb-form-of

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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.