Other forms: carousels
A carousel is the fairground ride of painted horses that spins to music. Ride the carousel, a Victorian carousel, the carousel music.
Merry-go-round and roundabout are the British everyday words for the same thing. Traditional carousels turn anticlockwise in America and clockwise in Britain, which is a genuine and unexplained difference. At an airport, the baggage carousel is the moving belt where luggage appears. Note the pronunciation with the stress on the last syllable, and that the ride is often called a gallopers by fairground people.
1nouncarouselA fairground ride of painted horses that spins.
“The carousel has been on that pier since about 1928.”
synonyms: merry-go-round, roundabout
2nounmovingA moving belt where luggage appears at an airport.
“Two bags came round the carousel and neither was theirs.”
carousel is a turning ride or belt.
Also accepted in games: merry-go-round
Italian carosello was a tournament in which horsemen wheeled in formation, from a word for a small chariot. The fairground ride imitates the tournament, which is why the horses are arranged in circles.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱers-
Latin
carrus
Neapolitan
carusiello
Sicilian
caruseḍḍu
Italian
carosello
French
carrousel
English, today
carousel
Built from
From French carrousel, from Italian carosello, from Sicilian caruseḍḍu and/or Neapolitan carusiello. unknown. Some suggested a derivation from carro (“cart”), from Latin carrus, but this does not fit the criteria of an appropriate morphological reconstruction. Not believed to be related to carousal.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA