wheel
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: wēl
ipa: /wiːl/
note: without the wine–whine merger
ipa: /ʍiːl/
ipa: /wil/
note: without the wine–whine merger
ipa: /ʍil/
homophone: wheal
homophone: weal
homophone: weel (wine–whine merger)
homophone: we'll (one pronunciation along with the wine–whine merger)
rhymes: -iːl
Forms: form: wheels
Etymology: From Middle English whel, from Old English hwēol, from Proto-West Germanic *hwehwl, from Proto-Germanic *hwehwlą, *hweulō, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷekʷlóm, *kʷékʷlos, *kʷékʷléh₂, reduplication of *kʷel- (“to turn”) and a suffix (literally "(the thing that) turns and turns"). See also West Frisian tsjil, Dutch wiel, Danish hjul; also Tocharian B kokale (“cart, wagon”), Ancient Greek κύκλος (kúklos, “cycle, wheel”), Avestan 𐬗𐬀𐬑𐬭𐬀 (caxra), Sanskrit चक्र (cakrá); and Latin colō (“to till, cultivate”), Tocharian A and Tocharian B käl- (“to bear; bring”), Ancient Greek πέλω (pélō, “to come into existence, become”), Old Church Slavonic коло (kolo, “wheel”), Albanian sjell (“to bring, carry, turn around”), Avestan 𐬗𐬀𐬭𐬀𐬌𐬙𐬌 (caraⁱti, “it circulates”), Sanskrit चरति (cárati, “it moves, wanders”). Doublet of chakra, chakram, charkha, chukker, cycle, cyclus, and kike.
Senses: examples: text: The departure was not unduly prolonged.[…]Within the door Mrs. Spoker hastily imparted to Mrs. Love a few final sentiments on the subject of Divine Intention in the disposition of buckets; farewells and last commiserations; a deep, guttural instigation to the horse; and the wheels of the waggonette crunched heavily away into obscurity.
ref: 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
glosses: A circular device capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation or performing labour in machines.
glosses: A circular device capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation or performing labour in machines.
A steering wheel and its implied control of a vehicle.
examples: text: I hear the noise about thy keel;
⁠I hear the bell struck in the night:
⁠I see the cabin-window bright;
I see the sailor at the wheel.
ref: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto X”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: A circular device capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation or performing labour in machines.
The instrument attached to the rudder by which a vessel is steered.
glosses: A circular device capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation or performing labour in machines.
A spinning wheel.
examples: text: Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 18:3:
text: Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar / A touch can make, a touch can mar.
ref: 1878, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kéramos:
glosses: A circular device capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation or performing labour in machines.
A potter's wheel.
glosses: The breaking wheel, an old instrument of torture.
glosses: A person with a great deal of power or influence; a big wheel.
topics: computing
engineering
mathematics
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
sciences
glosses: A person with a great deal of power or influence; a big wheel.
A superuser on certain systems.
topics: card-games
poker
glosses: The lowest straight in poker: ace-2-3-4-5.
topics: card-games
poker
glosses: The best low hand in Lowball or High-low split poker: either ace-2-3-4-5 or 2-3-4-5-7, depending on the variant.
topics: automotive
transport
vehicles
glosses: A wheelrim.
glosses: A round portion of cheese.
glosses: A Catherine wheel firework.
examples: text: Flashing thick flames , wheel within wheel undrawn
ref: 1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
glosses: A rolling or revolving body; anything of a circular form; a disk; an orb.
examples: text: [He] throws his steep flight in many an aery wheel.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
glosses: A turn or revolution; rotation; compass.
examples: text: the wheel of life
text: According to the common vicissitude and wheel of things, the proud and the insolent, after long trampling upon others, come at length to be trampled upon themselves.
ref: 1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:
glosses: A recurring or cyclical course of events.
glosses: A dollar.
synonyms: cartwheel
tosheroon
glosses: A crown coin.
examples: text: There was no vehicle of any sort, on land or water, in those days, that could go as fast as a bicycle, except a railroad train. […] Hammondsport and Glenn Curtiss had never even heard of the not yet quite born automobile. But Glenn Curtiss could push his "wheel," with those long legs of his, uphill, downhill or on the level, faster than any other boy in Hammondsport.
ref: 1927 March, Popular Science, page 22:
glosses: A bicycle or tricycle.
glosses: A maneuver in marching in which the marchers turn in a curving fashion to right or left so that the order of marchers does not change.
examples: text: The real numbers can be extended to a wheel, as can any commutative ring.
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: A type of algebra where division is always defined, and in particular division by zero is meaningful.
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
phonology
prosody
sciences
coordinate_terms: bob
bobwheel
glosses: The return to a peculiar rhythm at the end of each stanza.
Synonyms: sense: instrument of torture
word: breaking wheel
sense: wheel rim
word: rim
Derived terms: 3rd wheel
5th wheel
ab roller wheel
ab wheel
alloy wheel
all-wheel
all-wheel drive
Archibald wheel
artillery wheel
asleep at the wheel
at the wheel
awheel
back wheel
balance wheel
behind the wheel
bevel wheel
big wheel
bookwheel
brake wheel
break a butterfly on a wheel
break a butterfly on the wheel
break a butterfly upon a wheel
break a butterfly upon the wheel
break a fly on a wheel
break a fly on the wheel
break a fly upon a wheel
break a fly upon the wheel
breaking wheel
break on the wheel
break the wheel
break upon the wheel
breastwheel
brushwheel
brush wheel
bucketwheel
buffing wheel
buff wheel
bull wheel
butterfly upon a wheel
camwheel
cam wheel
cartwheel
Catharine wheel
Catherine wheel
Catherine wheel cookie
cat wheel
chainwheel
change wheel
chore wheel
click wheel
coachwheel
code wheel
cog-wheel
cog wheel
cogwheel
color wheel
colour wheel
control wheel
counterwheel
countwheel
crown wheel
daisy wheel
daisy wheel printer
dash-wheel
devil's wheel
diamond wheel
disk wheel
dog wheel
drive wheel
driving wheel
eighteen-wheeler
English wheel
epicycloidal wheel
escape wheel
exercise wheel
fan-wheel
Ferris wheel
fifth wheel
firewheel
fish wheel
flicker wheel
flutter wheel
flywheel
follow a wheel
footwheel
forewheel
foundling wheel
four-wheel
four-wheel drive
four-wheel-drive
freewheel
freewheeling
front wheel
front-wheel drive
front-wheel skid
fudge wheel
gear-wheel
gearwheel
gear wheel
Geneva wheel
German wheel
grease the wheels
great spur wheel
great wheel
grinding wheel
guidewheel
half-wheel
hamster wheel
handwheel
headwheel
heart wheel
hell on wheels
horsewheel
Hot Wheel
human roulette wheel
idle wheel
inwheel
jagging wheel
joy wheel
kick the wheels
kick wheel
lantern wheel
lapidary's wheel
leading wheel
Leibniz wheel
licorice wheel
liquorice wheel
mag wheel
main wheel
mani wheel
meals on wheels
medicine wheel
millwheel
mill wheel
mitre wheel
monkey wheel
monowheel
mortise wheel
mouse wheel
news wheel
North American wheel bug
nosewheel
observation wheel
omni wheel
on wheels
open wheel
open-wheel
open-wheel racing
paddle wheel
pastry wheel
pattern wheel
Pelton wheel
Persian wheel
phonic wheel
pilot wheel
pinwheel
pitwheel
pizza wheel
planet wheel
plate wheel
poly wheel
poly-wheel
Poncelet wheel
ponce wheel
potter's wheel
pot wheel
pounce wheel
power wheel
prayer wheel
praying wheel
press wheel
print-wheel
print wheel
printwheel
put a spoke in someone's wheel
put one's shoulder to the wheel
ratchet wheel
reaction wheel
rear wheel
rear-wheel drive
reinventing the wheel
reinvent the wheel
roadwheel
rockwheel
roulette wheel
scape-wheel
scoopwheel
scoop wheel
scroll wheel
set one's shoulder to the wheel
set the wheels in motion
ship's wheel
sidewheel
side-wheel
sidewheeler
sit in the wheels
sit on someone's wheel
skateboard wheel
skew wheel
slow wheel
snail-wheel
snowflake wheel
spare wheel
spider wheel
spinner wheel
spinning wheel
spin one's wheels
spin someone's wheels
split wheel
sprocket wheel
spur-wheel
squeaky wheel
squeaky wheels get oiled
squeaky wheel system
squirrel wheel
star wheel
starwheel
steel wheel
steering wheel
steering wheel becket
steering wheel spinner
steering wheel spinner knob
sternwheel
stern-wheeler
stream wheel
swing wheel
tailwheel
take the wheel
the squeaky wheel gets the grease
the squeaky wheel gets the oil
the wheel has come full circle
the wheels came off
the wheels came off the bus
the wheels came off the wagon
the wheels fall off
the wheels fell off
the wheels fell off the bus
the wheels fell off the wagon
the wheel turns
third wheel
three-wheel
three-wheeler
throwing wheel
thumbwheel
thunder-wheel
tide wheel
tonewheel
trackwheel
trailing wheel
training wheels
training wheel
trammel wheel
treadwheel
trundle wheel
tub wheel
two-wheel drive
two-wheeler
two-wheel tractor
typewheel
type wheel
ultimate wheel
until the wheels fall off
unwheel
upwheel
wagon wheel
wagon-wheel effect
walking wheel
Wartenberg wheel
water wheel
water-wheel
wheelable
wheel about
wheelage
wheel and axle
wheel and deal
wheel animal
wheel animalcule
wheel arch
wheel arrangement
wheel artist
wheelback
wheelband
wheel-barrow
wheelbarrow
wheel-barrow man
wheelbase
wheelbench
wheelbird
wheelbox
wheel brace
wheel breadth
wheel bug
wheelchair
wheel-clamp
wheel clamp
wheelclamping
wheelcraft
wheel cutter
wheel dog
wheeled
wheeler
wheelery
wheel-eyed
wheel fiddle
wheel flat
wheelful
wheelgun
wheel hoe
wheel-horse
wheelhorse
wheel horse
wheel house
wheelhouse
wheel-house
wheelie
wheelie bin
wheel lathe
wheelless
wheellike
wheellock
wheel lock
wheelmaker
wheelmaking
wheelman
wheel of death
wheel of fortune
wheel of Fortune
Wheel of Fortune
wheel of life
wheel of time
wheel ore
wheel out
wheelpit
wheel pit
wheel plough
wheel press
wheel-race
wheelrim
wheel round
wheels are turning
wheelset
wheel shop
wheelslide
wheel slide
wheelslip
wheelsman
wheelsmith
wheels of steel
wheelspan
wheel spider
wheelspin
wheel spinner
wheelstand
wheel stitch
wheelstone
wheelsuck
wheelsucker
wheels-up
wheelswarf
wheeltapper
wheel-tapper
wheeltapping
wheel tax
wheel tree
wheel truck
wheel urchin
wheel war
wheel wash
wheelway
wheel well
wheelwell
wheel window
wheelwise
wheel within a wheel
wheelwoman
wheelwork
wheelwright
wheelwrighting
wheely
windwheel
wire wheel
worm and wheel
worm wheel
Zuppinger wheel