Word.ws English Dictionary

roll the dice

roll the dice verb: to take a chance, particularly a risky attempt.

Verb

roll the dice (third-person singular simple present rolls the dice, present participle rolling the dice, simple past and past participle rolled the dice)

  1. (figuratively) To take a chance, particularly a risky attempt.
    • No one really knows which companies and technologies will come out ahead, so everyone is rolling the dice.1995 August 13, Christopher Farrell, “Commentary: Media Control Is Narrowing. Should We Worry?”, in Businessweek, retrieved 14 Aug 2012
    • Could we take the chance? Could we roll the dice?2003, James Siegel, Derailed, →ISBN
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see roll, dice.

Synonyms of roll the dice

Forms of roll the dice

third-person singular presentrolls the dice
present participlerolling the dice
past participlerolled the dice
pastrolled the dice

Origin of roll the dice

Metaphor from the use of dice in gambling games.

Questions about roll the dice

What does roll the dice mean?
Roll the dice means to take a chance, particularly a risky attempt.
What part of speech is roll the dice?
Roll the dice is a verb.
What is the past tense of roll the dice?
The past tense of roll the dice is rolled the dice.

Words near roll the dice in the dictionary

  1. roll step
  2. roll stepped
  3. roll stepping
  4. roll steps
  5. roll tape
  6. roll the dice
  7. roll the pitch
  8. roll the tape
  9. roll the trucks
  10. roll tide
  11. roll up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: roll the dice (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-roll the dice.ogg.

Cite this entry: “roll the dice.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/roll_the_dice. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.