roulette

plural roulettes

1. uncountableA game of chance in which a small ball is made to move round rapidly on a circle divided off into numbered (usually red and black) spaces. When the ball stops, it indicates the result of a variety of wagers permitted by the game.

   Synonyms: roly-poly

2. figurativelyuncountableAn instance of risk-taking, especially when the downside exceeds the upside (contrary to the game of roulette where only the wager is lost).

   They would all rather take their chances with the existing policy-making roulette rather than follow process discipline.

   2020 June 23, John Bolton, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 290

   2 more examples

   Doctors and health officials said that the WRC-TV documentary, "DPT: Vaccine Roulette," emphasized the risks of the vaccine while ignoring the dangers of the disease, which has been almost wiped out in this country.

   1982 April 28, Donna Hilts, “TV Report On Vaccine Stirs Bitter Controversy”, in Washington Post

   By contrast giving treatments open-label slows everything down by leading us up blind alleys while playing roulette with our patients' lives.

   2020 November 2, Adam Finn quoted by Alessandra Scotto Di Santolo in Daily Expresshttps://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1354994/tony-blair-coronavirus-vaccine-coronavirus-treatment-astrazeneca-covid-19-vn

3. countableA small toothed wheel used by engravers to roll over a plate in order to produce rows of dots.
4. countableA similar wheel used to roughen the surface of a plate, as in making alterations in a mezzotint.
5. countablegeometryThe locus of a point on a plane curve that rolls without slipping along another fixed plane curve.
6. countableuncountablehobbiesAny of the small incisions on a sheet of stamps, used as an alternative to perforations.
7. countableuncountableA cylindrical curler for the hair.

present singular third person roulettes · participle present rouletting · participle past rouletted · past rouletted

1. To separate or decorate by incisions made with a small toothed wheel.

   to roulette a sheet of postage stamps