russian roulette
noun
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ruhshuhnrooletSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹʌʃənɹulɛt
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
A stunt in which you spin the cylinder of a revolver that is loaded with only one bullet and then point the muzzle at your head and pull the trigger
idiomaticgames
A deadly game in which a person loads a single bullet in the cylinder of a revolver, spins the cylinder so that the bullet's location is unknown, points the muzzle at his/her head, and pulls the trigger. In its most lethal form, played by multiple participants each of whom takes a turn until the weapon discharges.
figurative
Any activity, especially a needless one, that carries a high risk of death or disaster.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A stunt in which you spin the cylinder of a revolver that is loaded with only one bullet and then point the muzzle at your head and pull the trigger
Used this way, russian roulette 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.
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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.