"Rolex" meaning in English

See Rolex in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈɹəʊlɛks/ [Received-Pronunciation] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Rolex.wav Forms: Rolexes [plural]
Etymology: Coined ex nihilo by German watchmaker Hans Wilsdorf in 1908 as a trade name. Wildorf later explained: "I tried combining the letters of the alphabet in every possible way. This gave me some hundred names, but none of them felt quite right. One morning, while riding on the upper deck of a horse-drawn omnibus along Cheapside in the City of London, a genie whispered ‘Rolex’ in my ear." Etymology templates: {{coinage|en|Q28901|exnihilo=1|in=1908}} Coined ex nihilo by German watchmaker Hans Wilsdorf in 1908 Head templates: {{en-noun}} Rolex (plural Rolexes)
  1. A luxury wristwatch produced by the brand Rolex SA. Derived forms: fauxlex, Rolexed, Rollie

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "Q28901",
        "exnihilo": "1",
        "in": "1908"
      },
      "expansion": "Coined ex nihilo by German watchmaker Hans Wilsdorf in 1908",
      "name": "coinage"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Coined ex nihilo by German watchmaker Hans Wilsdorf in 1908 as a trade name. Wildorf later explained: \"I tried combining the letters of the alphabet in every possible way. This gave me some hundred names, but none of them felt quite right. One morning, while riding on the upper deck of a horse-drawn omnibus along Cheapside in the City of London, a genie whispered ‘Rolex’ in my ear.\"",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Rolexes",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Rolex (plural Rolexes)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms coined ex nihilo",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "derived": [
        {
          "word": "fauxlex"
        },
        {
          "word": "Rolexed"
        },
        {
          "word": "Rollie"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              60,
              65
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2015, Dorothea Benton Frank, Carolina Girls:",
          "text": "He pulled up his sleeve and there on his scrawny arm hung a Rolex the size of Big Ben.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A luxury wristwatch produced by the brand Rolex SA."
      ],
      "id": "en-Rolex-en-noun-B1~JALxN",
      "links": [
        [
          "wristwatch",
          "wristwatch#Noun"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈɹəʊlɛks/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Rolex.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/47/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-Rolex.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-Rolex.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/47/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-Rolex.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-Rolex.wav.ogg"
    },
    {
      "homophone": "rolex"
    }
  ],
  "word": "Rolex"
}
{
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "fauxlex"
    },
    {
      "word": "Rolexed"
    },
    {
      "word": "Rollie"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "Q28901",
        "exnihilo": "1",
        "in": "1908"
      },
      "expansion": "Coined ex nihilo by German watchmaker Hans Wilsdorf in 1908",
      "name": "coinage"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Coined ex nihilo by German watchmaker Hans Wilsdorf in 1908 as a trade name. Wildorf later explained: \"I tried combining the letters of the alphabet in every possible way. This gave me some hundred names, but none of them felt quite right. One morning, while riding on the upper deck of a horse-drawn omnibus along Cheapside in the City of London, a genie whispered ‘Rolex’ in my ear.\"",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "Rolexes",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "Rolex (plural Rolexes)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English coinages",
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms coined by Hans Wilsdorf",
        "English terms coined ex nihilo",
        "English terms with homophones",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              60,
              65
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2015, Dorothea Benton Frank, Carolina Girls:",
          "text": "He pulled up his sleeve and there on his scrawny arm hung a Rolex the size of Big Ben.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A luxury wristwatch produced by the brand Rolex SA."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "wristwatch",
          "wristwatch#Noun"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈɹəʊlɛks/",
      "tags": [
        "Received-Pronunciation"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-Rolex.wav",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/47/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-Rolex.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-Rolex.wav.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/47/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-Rolex.wav/LL-Q1860_%28eng%29-Flame%2C_not_lame-Rolex.wav.ogg"
    },
    {
      "homophone": "rolex"
    }
  ],
  "word": "Rolex"
}

Download raw JSONL data for Rolex meaning in English (2.0kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-08-12 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-08-02 using wiktextract (7cef23e and 3c020d2). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.