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Wheel of Fortune

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: wheel of fortune and wheel of Fortune

English

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WOTD – 17 December 2024

Etymology

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The Wheel of Fortune tarot card (sense 2.2) drawn by the Italian artist Bonifacio Bembo for the dukes of Milan from the Houses of Visconti and Sforza in the 15th century. It depicts the Roman goddess Fortuna’s mythological Wheel of Fortune (sense 1).

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”)).

Pronunciation

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Proper noun

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Wheel of Fortune

  2. (mythology, philosophy) The mythological wheel turned randomly by Fortuna, the Roman goddess of fate, fortune, and luck, to determine people's fortunes which were thus unpredictable.
    Synonyms: rota Fortunae, wheel, (archaic, rare) Wheel of Providence
    • [c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act I, scene ii, signature [A8], verso:
      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.]
    • 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 Philosopher, […], volume I, London: […] [F]or the author; and sold by J. Newbery and W. Bristow, […]; J. Leake and W. Frederick, […]; B. Collins, […]; and A. M. Smart and Co. […], published 1762, →OCLC, page 22:
      The vvheel of fortune turns inceſſantly round, and vvho can ſay vvithin himſelf I ſhall to day be uppermoſt.
    • 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:
      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 more.
    • 1963 (date written), John Kennedy Toole, chapter 2, in A Confederacy of Dunces, London: Penguin Books, published 1980 (1981 printing), →ISBN, section I, page 27:
      As a medievalist Ignatius believed in the rota Fortunae, or wheel of fortune, a central concept in De Consolatione Philosophiae, the philosophical work which had laid foundation for medieval thought. […] Was his wheel rapidly spinning downward?
  3. (by extension)
    1. (gambling) 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”)
    3. (tarot) 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.
    4. (Can we verify(+) this sense?) A television game show where word puzzles are solved by filling in the missing letters.
      • 1980s, Dennis Miller, “Weekend Update”, Saturday Night Live
        ...Wheel of Fortune prices.
      • 1998, George J. Hademenos, Physics for Pre-Med, Biology, and Allied Health Students, Schaum's Outlines, McGraw-Hill Professional,, →ISBN, page 140:
        Solved Problem 9.2. Jerry, a contestant on Wheel of Fortune, is asked to spin the wheel 2.5-m diameter. If he exerts a tangential force of 75 N for his spin, what torque is exerted on the wheel?
      • 2000, Eric T. Olson, Tammy Perry Olson, Real-Life Math: Statistics, Walch Publishing,, →ISBN, page 56:
        Start by asking students if they ever watch Wheel of Fortune, or play games like Hangman or Scrabble.® Ask whether they have ever noticed any patterns in the frequency with which letters appear.
      • 2001, Tony Marsland, Ian Frank, editors, Computers and Games: Second International Conference, CG 2000: Hamamatsu, Japan, October 2000: Revised Papers, Springer, →ISBN, page 398:
        The Wheel of Fortune is a similar game, with three players competing to be the first to solve a hangman-like puzzle. There are two significant differences in the puzzle, however, that suggest that Wheel of Fortune should be classified as a language game and hangman a word game. First, Wheel of Fortune answers are often names of people or short phrases
      • 2003, Josh Lewin, Getting in the Game: Inside Baseball's Winter Meetings, Brassey’s, →ISBN, page 46:
        A middle-aged man in a faded blue windbreaker walks through the Governor’s ballroom lobby.... “Is this where the Wheel of Fortune auditions are?” he asks. A hotel official tells him he’s in the wrong wing of the hotel... Actually he’s not that far off, if you want to get cosmic about it. Except PBEO’s Ann Perkins would claim little in common with Vanna White.
      • 2003, Markus Friedl, Online Game Interactivity Theory, Charles River Media,, →ISBN, page 48:
        The density of these games, however, is not limited and can range from very simple variations of Chess, Backgammon, Hearts, or Wheel of Fortune to very complex real-time strategy games or shooters. (Strictly speaking, Half Life and Day of Defeat are nothing more than round-based MPOOG.)
      • 2003, Matthew McIntosh, Well, Grove Press,, →ISBN, page 43:
        ...we’d sit there watching Wheel of Fortune unless it was Sunday but we never did it on Sunday—and now that I think about it I don’t think we ever did it before seven o’clock—because it always started with Wheel of Fortune...and this girl would always solve the puzzles before me or before anyone on the show except she always had trouble with this one guy who was always getting them after one or two letters and consequently not winning much dough—but we’d watch Wheel and after Wheel we’d watch Jeopardy which again she was much better at than me...
      • 2003, Stephen Pite, The Digital Designer: 101 Graphic Design Projects for Print, the Web, Multimedia & Motion, Thomson Delmar Learning, →ISBN, page 172:
        For instance, suppose our subject is the “History of 0.” The invention of the wheel, the invention of zero, the construction of the Roman Coliseum, the invention of the compass, the development of the traffic circle, Pauline Reage’s book The Story of 0, and the Wheel of Fortune could be events indicated along a linear flow of time extending from prehistory through contemporary time.
      • 2004, Tracy Fullerton, Christopher Swain, Steven Hoffman, Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, and Playtesting Games, CMP Books, →ISBN, page 380:
        Figure 14.2 is an example of a game flowchart...for an online multiplayer version of the Wheel of Fortune game.... Figure 14.3 shows an interface wireframe from Wheel of Fortune, an early concept sketch for the interface, and the final interface as released.
      • 2004, Lee Sheldon, Character Development and Storytelling for Games, Thomson Course Technology,, →ISBN, page 37:
        It’s not enough to heedlessly scatter characters throughout a game like chicken feed in the barnyard mud because we need an adversary at this moment, a merchant here, or a puzzle-giver there. Characters in games must be more than clones of Vanna White, magically revealing those letters on Wheel of Fortune. Characters have a right to their own lives in the game.

Usage notes

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  • Chiefly preceded by a determiner, especially the.

Alternative forms

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Derived terms

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  • wheel of fortune (“gambling or lottery device consisting of a wheel which is spun horizontally”)

Translations

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Further reading

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