rotola

Rotola is a form of the Italian verb rotolare, and appears most notably as the third-person singular present indicative: he/she/it rolls. It is used to describe things that move by rolling, often with intransitive meaning, as in La palla rotola lungo la strada (The ball rolls along the road).

Rotola also functions in the imperative mood for the second-person singular, where Rotola! means Roll! or Roll it!, used to instruct someone to roll an object. This dual function—present indicative and imperative—reflects common Italian verb morphology in a compact stem form.

In practical usage, rotolare describes rolling motion rather than rotating around an axis. For example, La ruota rotola giù per la collina (The wheel rolls down the hill) emphasizes linear rolling rather than spinning in place. The verb is frequent in everyday language, sports, and descriptions of physical movement.

Etymology-wise, rotolare derives from Latin roots associated with rolling and turning, connected to words in Romance languages that reference motion along a surface. It shares a semantic field with ruotare, another Italian verb meaning to rotate or turn, though rotolare and ruotare describe distinct kinds of movement.

See also rotolare, which provides the base verb and its full conjugation; ruotare, another related verb describing rotational movement.