freewheel
/friːˈwiːl
/verb [no object]
1Ride a bicycle with the pedals at rest, especially downhill: the postman came freewheeling down the track...
- We swept through the town of Grindelwald and freewheeled along the bank of the Lutschine river.
- As I freewheeled and carefully negotiated the ruts, I enjoyed views of Wetwang, partially hidden in trees, and surrounded by all that cultivated land Sir Tatton was describing.
- We rode through a stream, enjoyed a few final bursts of speed and skidding switchbacks and freewheeled into the shanty town of Yolosa.
Synonyms
coast, cruise, drift, glide, sail, skim, float
1.1Allow a motor vehicle to travel without the engine running or in neutral gear: she was convinced that she saved a lot of petrol money by turning the engine off and freewheeling down the hill...
- In an automatic you virtually freewheel to a halt so the brakes have to stop the car all by themselves.
- The Yamaha also has an engine brake, but it had a tendency to freewheel down hills a bit.
- The equipment, which enables trains to freewheel, was fitted onto 51 185 locomotives run by the company.
2Act or proceed in a relaxed or casual way, without making much effort: I’m not the sort of person who would freewheel his way to the end of a contract another manager might have been willing to freewheel through one final season...
- Waterford freewheeled during the remainder of the game, with Power giving some of his subs a run out.
- The spark had gone and, with the flow of the game interrupted by substitutions, the home side freewheeled through a disappointing second period.
- From there to the end Milltown could afford to freewheel a little bit, with points from O'Shea and Dowling merely for statistical purposes.
noun
1 (free wheel) A bicycle wheel which is able to revolve freely when no power is being applied to the pedals.Both the Combi and Classic have the clutch wheel mounted in front and the free wheel in the rear....
- Track bikes have no breaks, only one gear and there is no free wheel, which means there is no coasting.
- It had wooden rims and no free wheel, but I thought it was a wonderful possession.
1.1A device in a motor vehicle transmission allowing the drive shaft to spin faster than the engine.He showed us how surprisingly easy it is to open the freewheel and service the bearings or pawls, although I doubt the sealed mechanism requires much maintenance....
- You will have to build another rim onto that hub so that you can twist the hub hard enough to unscrew the freewheel.
- I've been doing my own work for 20 years, but I can't figure out how to get any lube into the freewheel, much less how to actually open it up.
