(1) A job function that identifies the tasks that a user can perform and the resources to which a user has access. A user can be assigned one or more roles.
(2) A position or responsibility within an organization, such as order entry clerk, marketing manager, travel advisor, sales associate, and so on. Activities are often assigned to roles rather than to individuals.
(3) A defined set of permissions that can be assigned to database objects such as fields, forms, and views to simplify their maintenance.
(4) A set of permissions.
(5) A logical group of principals that provides a set of permissions. Access to operations is controlled by granting access to a role.
(6) The behaviour and characteristics that a given model element, classifier or other element can adopt for a given period of time.
(7) A description of a function to be carried out by an individual or bulk resource, and the qualifications required to fulfil the function. In simulation and analysis, the term role is also used to refer to the qualified resources.
(8) A definition of the behaviour and responsibilities of an individual or a team within the context of a software engineering organization.
(9) A database entity that groups together one or more privileges and that can be assigned, for example, to users, PUBLIC, other roles, or trusted contexts.