wheel

A circular device capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation or performing labour in machines.

Noun

  1. A circular device capable of rotating on its axis, facilitating movement or transportation or performing labour in machines.
    • 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...

    1. (informal, with "the") A steering wheel and its implied control of a vehicle.

      • He fell asleep at the wheel.

    2. (nautical) The instrument attached to the rudder by which a vessel is steered.

      • 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. - 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto X”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon,...

    3. A spinning wheel.

    4. A potter's wheel.

      • Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 18:3:
      • Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar / A touch can make, a touch can mar. - 1878, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kéramos:
  2. The breaking wheel, an old instrument of torture.
  3. A person with a great deal of power or influence; a big wheel.

    1. (computing, dated) A superuser on certain systems.

  4. The lowest straight in poker: ace-2-3-4-5.
  5. 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.
  6. A wheelrim.
  7. A round portion of cheese.
  8. A Catherine wheel firework.
  9. A rolling or revolving body; anything of a circular form; a disk; an orb.
    • Flashing thick flames , wheel within wheel undrawn - 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...
  10. A turn or revolution; rotation; compass.
    • [He] throws his steep flight in many an aery wheel. - 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...
  11. A recurring or cyclical course of events.
    • the wheel of life
    • 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. - 1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached...
  12. The control of, or ability to steer, the course of events.
    • This is the story of how AI changed our world in 2025, in new and exciting and sometimes frightening ways. It is the story of how Huang and other tech titans grabbed the wheel of history, developing technology and...

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- Proto-Indo-European *kʷekʷléh₂ Proto-Germanic *hweulō Old English hwēol Middle English whel English wheel 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, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish 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...

Forms

wheels

Synonyms

breaking wheel rim

Derived

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

Verb

  1. To roll along on wheels.
    • Wheel that trolley over here, would you?
    • I had to wheel my bicycle up a steep hill.
    • Why should we confine a body of men to making laws, when so many of them might be more usefully employed in wheeling barrows? - 1841, “Parliamentary Masons.—Parliamentary Pictures”, in Punch, volume I, page 162:
  2. To transport something or someone using any wheeled mechanism, such as a wheelchair.
    • The patient was wheeled out of the ER.
    • She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow Along a stretch of road; But she always ran away and left Her not-nice load, - 1916, Robert Frost, “A Girl’s Garden”, in Mountain Interval, New York: Henry Holt & Co, page 61:
    • Bob was wheeling the baby up and down, Mabel watching him, hawk-eyed, as though she suspected him of harboring intentions of tipping the cab over. - 1924, Bess Streeter Aldrich, chapter 3, in Mother Mason:
  3. To ride a bicycle or tricycle.
  4. To make a circular movement.
    • My arms wheeled frantically in the air as I tried to signal for help.
  5. To move smoothly and easily, as if on wheels.
    • I wheeled through the gathering, making all my appointed stops.
  6. To change direction quickly, turn, pivot, whirl, wheel around.
    • Your daughter, if you have not given her leave, I say again, hath made a gross revolt; Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes In an extravagant and wheeling stranger Of here and every where. - c. 1603–1604 (date...
    • The dog screamed, and, wheeling in terror, galloped headlong in a new direction. - 1898, Stephen Crane, The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky:
    • The gulls in the river were flying in long, lazy curves, dipping down to the water, skimming it an instant, and then wheeling up again with easy, slanting wings. - 1912, James Stephens, chapter 8, in The Charwoman’s...
  7. To cause to change direction quickly, turn.
    • […] he did as Menelaus had said, and set off running as soon as he had given his armour to a comrade, Laodocus, who was wheeling his horses round, close beside him. - 1898, Samuel Butler, The Iliad of Homer, Rendered...
    • Then wheeling his black steed suddenly, he raced away before the dazed soldiers could get their wits together to send a shower of arrows after him. - 1931, Robert E. Howard, chapter 2, in Hawks of Outremer:
  8. To travel around in large circles, particularly in the air.
    • The vulture wheeled above us.
    • […] Each aloft Upon his narrowed eminence bore globes Of wheeling suns, or stars, or semblances Of either, showering circular abyss Of radiance. - 1829, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Timbuctoo, lines 63–67:
    • The nineteenth Autumn has come upon me / Since I first made my count. / I saw, before I had well finished, / All suddenly mount / And scatter wheeling in great broken rings / Upon their clamorous wings. - 1917 November,...
  9. To put into a rotatory motion; to cause to turn or revolve; to make or perform in a circle.
    • Now Heav’n in all her Glorie shon, and rowld Her motions, as the great first-Movers hand First wheeld thir course; - 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold...
    • Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness holds, Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds: - 1751, Thomas Gray, Elegy Written...
    • […] upward, in the mellow blush of day, The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way. - 1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sunrise on the Hills:
  10. To reload a track; to play a wheel-up.
    • The crowd wanted to track to be played again, so they shouted out "Wheel it".

Forms

wheels wheeling wheeled

Derived

wheel around wheel away wheel-up word-wheeling