cartwheel
/ˈkɑːtwiːl
/noun
1The wheel of a cart.The first and most likely type to have been used in the Saxon period, is basically a cartwheel mounted horizontally on a pivot, the wheel being rotated by hand or with a stick....
- The archways and entrances on the town's streets are marked with limestone blocks for cartwheels to pass over, all worn with the passage of time, each archway unique in the shape and size of its own blocks.
- Certain desirable objets such as old roof tiles, an ancient cartwheel, a granite water trough and other items we hardly thought of as portable disappeared one by one from the building site.
2A circular sideways handspring with the arms and legs extended: he turned a cartwheel on the table...
- You are astonished to discover the man can do cartwheels, handstands and back flips.
- I could have done handsprings and cartwheels down the aisles without hitting anybody.
- She suddenly jumped into a handstand, followed by an array of back flips and cartwheels, making her way back from the stream.
verb [no object, with adverbial of direction]
Perform a cartwheel or cartwheels: he cartwheeled across the room...
- When she wouldn't stop somersaulting and cartwheeling in the front room we decided to take her dancing.
- Jade decided to practice her gymnastics and she cartwheeled over to the high dive.
- The sewer collapse happened before I got to San Francisco, but I still remember the impressive television news footage of that giant Tudor house cartwheeling in seconds into a giant hole and collapsing into a bunch of boards.