wheel of fortune
Syllables: wheel of for·tune/ˌwiːl‿əv ˈfɔːt͡ʃuːn/US/ˌwil‿əv ˈfoɹt͡ʃun/
wheel of fortune noun: a gambling or lottery device consisting of a wheel which is spun horizontally to determine, by its stopping position, whether a gambler will receive one of the prizes marked around its circumference. Also the alternative letter-case form of Wheel of Fortune.
Noun
wheel of fortune (plural wheels of fortune)
Proper noun (1) capitalized: Wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune
- The mythological wheel turned randomly by Fortuna, the Roman goddess of fate, fortune, and luck, to determine people's fortunes which were thus unpredictable.
- I hold the Fates bound faſt in yron chaines, / And with my hand turne Fortunes wheel about, / And ſooner ſhall the Sun fall from his Spheare, / Than Tamburlaine be ſlaine or ouercome.[c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
- The vvheel of fortune turns inceſſantly round, and vvho can ſay vvithin himſelf I ſhall to day be uppermoſt.1760, Oliver Goldsmith, “Letter VII. From Lien Chi Altangi, to Fum Hoam, First President of the Ceremonial Academy at Pekin, in China.”, in The Citizen of the World; or Letters from a Chinese...
- Synonyms:
- rota Fortunae, wheel, Wheel of Providence
- Synonym of Big Six wheel (“a game of chance consisting of a vertically mounted wheel divided into equal marked sectors; the winning sector is the one indicated by a pointer when the wheel stops turning”).
- Synonyms:
- Big Six wheel
- A tarot card with an image of Fortuna's wheel (sense 1), generally the tenth of 22 trumps of the major arcana in most tarot decks.
Proper noun (2) capitalized: wheel of Fortune
wheel of Fortune
- Alternative letter-case form of Wheel of Fortune (“the mythological wheel turned randomly by Fortuna, the Roman goddess of fate, fortune, and luck, to determine people's fortunes which were thus unpredictable”).
- I was young enough not to part with hope too easily;—the vague idea I had that my turn would come,—that the ever-circling wheel of Fortune would perchance lift me up some day as it now crushed me down, kept me just wearily capable of continuing existence,—though it was merely a continuance and no...1895, Marie Corelli, chapter I, in The Sorrows of Satan: or The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire […], London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 4
Also used as
wheel of fortune is also the alternative letter-case form of Wheel of Fortune.
Synonyms of wheel of fortune
- rota Fortunae
- wheel
- Wheel of Providence
- Big Six wheel
Forms of wheel of fortune
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | wheels of fortune |
| Proper noun | |
| alternative form | wheel of Fortune |
| alternative form | wheel of fortune |
Origin of wheel of fortune
From Wheel of Fortune, referring to the spinning of the Roman goddess Fortuna’s wheel which determined people’s fortunes.
From wheel + of + Fortune (“the Roman goddess Fortuna”), a calque of Latin rota Fortūnae (literally “Fortuna’s wheel”), from rota (“wheel”) + Fortūnae (the genitive dative singular of Fortūna (“the Roman goddess of fate, fortune, and luck”)).
Words that rhyme with wheel of fortune
Questions about wheel of fortune
- What does wheel of fortune mean?
- Wheel of fortune means a gambling or lottery device consisting of a wheel which is spun horizontally to determine, by its stopping position, whether a gambler will receive one of the prizes marked around its circumference.
- What part of speech is wheel of fortune?
- Wheel of fortune can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce wheel of fortune?
- Wheel of fortune is pronounced /ˌwiːl‿əv ˈfɔːt͡ʃuːn/.
- What is the plural of wheel of fortune?
- The plural of wheel of fortune is wheels of fortune.
Words near wheel of fortune in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: wheel of fortune (page history and authors); Wheel of Fortune (page history and authors); wheel of Fortune (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-Wheel of Fortune.wav.
Cite this entry: “wheel of fortune.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/wheel_of_fortune. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.