wheel
/wiːl
/noun
1A circular object that revolves on an axle and is fixed below a vehicle or other object to enable it to move over the ground: a chair on wheels...
- In stand-by configuration, the vehicle's front wheels deploy to the ground like a jet plane landing gear to increase longitudinal stability.
- I heard the doors close and saw little in the dimmed light, but I heard an engine starting and wheels moving along the ground.
- In addition, there is, he says, the physical damage caused by tractor wheels and by vehicles moving onto verges on narrow roads.
Synonyms
disc, hoop, ring, circle
1.1A circular object that revolves on an axle and forms part of a machine.Instead they pumped the water which turned the wheels which powered the machines....
- She ground her teeth like the gears in her head - fast and getting her nowhere, some useless pieces of machinery spinning an axle but no wheels.
- The gleaming, ultimate, driving machine slows down and stops, two alloy wheels on the footpath, twenty yards from the junction.
1.2 (the wheel) Used in reference to the cycle of a specified condition or set of events: the final release from the wheel of life...
- Like the wheel of karma that cycles through every life, the roots of present events can be traced back to earlier events in this or previous lives.
- His appointment as Waterford County Manager brought the wheel full cycle, a return for Donal from whence he began.
- Immortality, the birthless and deathless state of nirvana, lies beyond this cycle of the wheel of life.
1.3 (the wheel) historical A large wheel used as an instrument of punishment or torture, especially by binding someone to it and breaking their limbs: a man sentenced to be broken on the wheel...
- The punishment in hell is to broken on the wheel.
- Those who resisted were hanged, broken on the wheel, sent to the fortress of Toulon where the water was waist-high.
- Calas was broken on the wheel, a grisly process in which the condemned person's limbs were smashed with iron bars and the mutilated corpse raised up for public display on a cartwheel.
2A machine or structure having a wheel as its essential part.
2.1 (the wheel) The steering wheel of a vehicle or vessel: his crew know when he wants to take the wheel...
- Discrete buttons mounted behind the wheel give you fingertip control over the gearbox.
- This is a car that lives by its 7,000 rpm redline and brings out the devil in whoever sits behind the wheel.
- Put it on a motorway and you could happily sit behind the wheel and watch the miles waft past.
Synonyms
driving, steering, in the driving seat, in the driver's seat, in charge of
2.2A device with a revolving disc or drum used in various games of chance.Taking a chance on the roulette wheel could lead to empty pockets...
- This game allowed you to use the touch-screen as a steering device, displaying a wheel, which you drag in order to turn.
- Next Saturday night's pay-out will be 1,400 euro with an added bonus of a chance to spin the wheel for an extra 500 euro!
2.3A system, or a part of a system, regarded as a relentlessly moving machine: the wheels of justice...
- She got away with this, but are we to be mercilessly reduced to cogs in the wheels of medical care systems over which we have lost all control?
- Now home secretary David Blunkett says he's been trying to get the cleric out of circulation in Britain, but the wheels of the legal system grind slowly.
- Remember, the wheels of the justice system can grind very slowly, at least in the US.
3 (wheels) informal A car: she’s got wheels now
4A thing resembling a wheel, in particular a cheese made in the form of a shallow disc: a small wheel of Brie...
- That's the cheese maker workout section of the day when you turn about a thousand wheels of cheese ranging from two to 12 pounds.
- With perfect wheels of cheese and crackers before me, I misted up a bit.
- Has the cheese wheel come full circle for Peter Beattie?
5An instance of wheeling; a turn or rotation.
Synonyms
turn, rotation, pivot, swivel, gyration
6North American informal short for big wheel (sense 2).
7A set of short lines, typically five in number and rhyming, concluding the stanza of a poem.
verb
1 [with object] Push or pull (a vehicle with wheels): the tea trolley was wheeled out...
- A man wheeling his shopping cart through a toy store pulls up short in front of a huge box on a shelf.
- The 33-year-old nearly knocked over an elderly man who was wheeling his bike across the road as he drove away from the pursuing patrol car.
- The most likely explanation for Harry's disappearance was that he had slipped out of the gate when I was wheeling my bike into the garden after a longish lunch in town.
Synonyms
push, trundle, roll
1.1 [with object and adverbial of direction] Carry in or on a vehicle with wheels: a young woman is wheeled into the operating theatre...
- Others recalled spotting the attractive brunette in the village post office buying sweets for her children, wheeling her youngest daughter, who was two, in a pushchair.
- All sorts of people take part in the hour-long walks, from pensioners to young mums wheeling buggies to those who want some human company while taking the dog for a walk.
- On an unseasonally nippy May Tuesday, two women, a man and a young girl wheeling a baby's buggy, set about cracking open the votes in Kinsealy.
1.2 (wheel something on/out) informal Produce something that is unimpressive because it has been frequently seen or heard before: the old journalistic arguments have been wheeled out...
- After this unmatchable early peak, the usual karaoke classics were wheeled out.
- Celebrities were wheeled out, and they'd just stand there and tell anecdotes.
- Then Koizumi's secret weapons were wheeled out: glamorous female celebrity candidates.
2 [no object] (Of a bird or aircraft) fly in a wide circle or curve: the birds wheeled and dived...
- In the distance I could see the birds wheeling and diving into the clear blue waters of the Gulf.
- As he approached the towers a salty breeze whipped against his skin, A few birds circled overhead, wheeling absently in fatigue above the barren lands.
- Barrel rolls, loops and dives featured as the three aircraft wheeled gracefully over the expanse of Sydney Harbour.
Synonyms
turn, turn round, go round, rotate, revolve, circle, orbit
2.1Turn round quickly so as to face another way: Robert wheeled round to see the face of Mr Mafouz...
- She wheeled around quickly and saw a young boy, maybe 11, holding onto the reigns of a young foal.
- Credo pulled his horse up and wheeled around quickly to look behind him, where Erial pointed.
- Hearing a slight noise to her left, she wheeled round again and stormed along the corridor, cursing Brunton's obsession with mazes.
Phrases
on someone's wheel
on wheels
silly as a wheel
wheel and deal
the wheel of Fortune
wheels within wheels
Derivatives
wheelless
- Colin's sled was one of those fancy steerable ‘ski’ style sleds, with two skis supporting a raised seat and a third movable ski affixed to a steering wheel in front, not unlike a wheelless motorcycle.
- And as you described it, the wheels off on this administration, and quickly finding itself wheelless.
- When I hung up, there on the sidewalk by a trash can was a bike frame, wheelless, rusty, but with a leather seat on it.
Origin
Old English hwēol (noun), of Germanic origin, from an Indo-European root shared by Sanskrit cakra 'wheel, circle' and Greek kuklos 'circle'.
The wheel was probably invented some time around 4000 bc in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). Its name, probably based on a word meaning ‘to turn’, moved east to India, where it produced Sanskrit cakra ‘wheel, circle’, source of the chakra (late 19th century) of yoga, and west, where it gave rise to Greek kuklos ‘circle’, the source of cycle (Late Middle English) and cyclone (mid 19th century). It is recorded in Anglo-Saxon English from about ad 900. To reinvent the wheel is a 20th-century expression. Wheels within wheels is an allusion to a biblical quotation from the Old Testament book of Ezekiel. The prophet Ezekiel sees a vision in which four cherubs appear: ‘And as for their appearances, they four had one likeness, as if a wheel had been in the midst of a wheel’.