| 释义 |
ˈwater-wheel
1. A wheel designed to drive machinery, esp. that of a mill or pump, with water as the motive power.
1408Durham Acc. Roll in Eng. Hist. Rev. XIV. 517 Pro cariagio..unius axeltre..pro le Water-whelle. a1530J. Heywood Play of Weather (Brandl) 461 Our floodgate, our myl⁓poole, our water whele. 1648Wilkins Dædalus xv. 284 For if there were but such a water-wheel made on this instrument [i.e. the Archimedean screw], upon which the stream that is carried up, may fall in its descent, it would turn the Screw round. 1759Smeaton Exper. Enq. (1794) 2 Concerning Undershot Water Wheels. 1773W. Emerson Princ. Mech. (ed. 3) 240 London-bridge water-works. AB the axis of the water-wheel CD. 1830Kater & Lardner Mech. xiv. 179 In water-wheels, the power is the weight of water contained in buckets at the circumference. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. iii. 25 At one end was a little water-wheel turned by a brook. 1893Sir R. Ball Story of Sun 242 A water-wheel, turned by Niagara, virtually derives its energy from the transformation of Sunbeams.
2. A wheel for raising water, esp. for irrigation purposes, by means of buckets or boxes fitted on its circumference.
1639G. Plattes Discov. Infin. Treas. vii. 32 Water wheeles..with wooden bottels which doe fill in the river, and empty themselves above into a trough of wood. 1825J. Nicholson Oper. Mech. 230 As the mule..goes round, these horizontal arms..take hold..of those arms which are fixed on the axis of the water-wheel, and keep it in rotation. 1877A. B. Edwards Up Nile vi. 140 The water-wheel slowly revolving with its necklace of pots. 1914Blackw. Mag. Oct. 428/1 Waterwheels have to be employed to irrigate the old terraces.
†3. A wheel for propelling a boat through the water; a paddle-wheel. Obs.
1787P. Miller in B. Woodcroft Steam Navig. (1848) 29 An account of experiments made by Mr. Miller..in a double vessel..put in motion by his water wheel. 1814in Scribner's Mag. (1887) May 518/2 She is a structure resting upon two boats... The great water-wheel revolves in the space between them. 1822J. Imison Sci. & Art I. 226 Some attempts have been made to place the water-wheels, or paddles that drive the vessel, in the middle. |