Roulette

In a couple of weeks, I will travel to Helena/West Memphis with my family to visit my aunt and uncle. At some point on this excursion, we will probably visit one of many casinos in the area, as usual. I'm not really the gambling type, but I have gambled enough to know that I should never play Roulette. Perhaps my luck just isn't enough to benefit from this game.

According to the OED, the word roulette was first used to describe a small wheel in the 1700's, although this usage is now obselete. It was then used to describe "a game of chance played on a table with a revolving centre, on which a ball is set in motion, and finally drops into one of a set of numbered compartments" in a set of legislations in 1745.

In the AHD, the aforementioned definition is listed and then followed by another, defining a roulette as a "small toothed disk of tempered steel attached to a handle and used to make rows of dots, lsits, or perferations, as on a sheet of postage stamps". Roulette can also be used to describe any perferations made on a sheet of stamps.

The etymological history of roulette, as found in the AHD, lists it as a French word, derived from the Old French word ruelete, a feminine diminuitive of the word ruele/roue, a word meaning "wheel". Roue is derived from the Latin word for wheel, rota.