role
noun
Simple meaning
The expected behaviour of a person in a society.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rohlIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹoʊl
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The expected behaviour of an individual in a society.
The function or position of something.
A character or part played by a performer or actor.
Designation that denotes an associated set of responsibilities, knowledge, skills, or privileges
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The function or position of something.
Used this way, role is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use role
- “What is your role on the team?”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Someone worthy of imitation.
A person who makes deceitful pretenses.
The overt expression of attitudes that indicate to others the degree of your maleness or femaleness.
The semantic role of the animate entity that instigates or causes the happening denoted by the verb in the clause.
A small role.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Acting a particular role (as in psychotherapy).
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.