ProbableFrom the people of the place
Russian roulette
noun · first attested 1937
There is no real evidence Russians ever played the game named after them.
The lethal game of spinning the cylinder of a partly loaded revolver and pulling the trigger against one's own head.
Record
- Relationship
- From the people of the place
- Confidence
- ProbableThe conventional story is likely, with caveats.
- Attested
- 1937
- Part of speech
- noun
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Russia
- In English
Russian roulette
The English name comes from a 1937 magazine story by Georges Surdez, which set the practice among Russian officers in Romania two decades earlier; no Russian source of the period describes anything like it. The phrase spread far faster than any evidence for the custom behind it.
Also pinned to Russia
2 more from the same place
Russia
All 11 entries 8 more words from Russia
astrakhanThe curled fleece is named for a city on the Volga delta.AstrakhanBorodino breadA dark rye named after the bloodiest single day of Napoleon's Russian campaign.BorodinoBorodinsky breadThe bread is named for the bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic wars.BorodinoburpaliteAn obscure alkaline intrusion in the mountains north of Lake Baikal has produced a long list of minerals found nowhere else.Severo-Baykalsky DistrictChegetRussia's nuclear command kit is named after a ski mountain in the Caucasus.ChegetdubniumThis element carried two rival names for nearly thirty years before a committee settled the argument.DubnaKotlinNamed after an island on purpose, because Java is an island too.Kotlin IslandturgiteA mineral that was unnamed twice: once for the species and once when X-rays showed it was a mixture.Krasnoturyinsk