Role Meaning
/ɹəʊl/Definition, CEFR level A1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounA character or part played by a performer or actor.
nounThe expected behaviour of an individual in a society.
Sentence Examples
Mary played the role of an old woman in the play.
Bob will play the leading role for the first time in the next school festival.
The talented actor played a leading role in the new film.
CEFR Practice Quiz
In the play, her ____ was to deliver the final speech.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She played a central ____ in negotiating the agreement that ended the decade-long dispute.
Word Origin & History
From French rôle, from Middle French rolle, from Old French role, from Medieval Latin rotulus. Doublet of roll and rotulus.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 2013 May-June, Katrina G. Claw, “Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3:
"As students all over the United States knuckle down to learning, the rumble of war drums once more proclaims Mars high man in Europe. Discarding morbid curiosity, every student should consider it vitally necessary to get a general picture of the causes, movements, and possible effects of World War II. The average U. S. citizen's knowledge of World War II will probably decide his role in it."
— 1939 November 10, “Following The War”, in The Chart, volume I, number 1, Joplin, Missouri: Joplin Junior College, page 4, column 1:
"I'm setting up a few roles that all have the same permissions but different cosmetics.
When I go to add a new role, the permissions are all turned off by default. Is there a way to have them default to the @everyone permissions?"
— 2024 April 24, leatherett3, “Do I have to do the permissions from scratch with every role?”, in Reddit, archived from the original on 12 Sep 2024, r/discordapp:
"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."
— 1984, David M. Perlmutter, Carol G. Rosen, Studies in relational grammar: Volume 2:
Explore More A1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
In the play, her ____ was to deliver the final speech.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
She played a central ____ in negotiating the agreement that ended the decade-long dispute.