/wiːl/, /ʍiːl/, /wil/
OriginFrom 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 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 around”), Avestan 𐬗𐬀𐬭𐬀𐬌𐬙𐬌 (caraⁱti, “it circulates”), Sanskrit चरति (cárati, “it moves, wanders”). Doublet of chakra, chakram, charkha, chukker, cycle, cyclus, and kike.
- 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 a”
- informal, with-definite-articleA steering wheel and its implied control of a vehicle.
- 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.”
- A spinning wheel.
- A potter's wheel.
“Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.”
“Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar / A touch can make, a touch can mar.”
- The breaking wheel, an old instrument of torture.
- slangA person with a great deal of power or influence; a big wheel.
- dated, slangA superuser on certain systems.
- slangThe lowest straight in poker: ace-2-3-4-5.
- slangThe 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.
- A wheelrim.
- A round portion of cheese.
- A Catherine wheel firework.
- obsoleteA rolling or revolving body; anything of a circular form; a disk; an orb.
“Flashing thick flames , wheel within wheel undrawn”
- A turn or revolution; rotation; compass.
“[He] throws his steep flight in many an aery wheel.”
- figurativelyA 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.”
- figurativelyThe 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 t”
- archaic, slangA dollar.
- UK, archaic, slangA crown coin.
- archaic, informalA bicycle or tricycle.
“There was no vehicle of any sort, on land or water, in those days, that could go as fast as a bicycle, except a railroad train. […] Hammondsport and Glenn Curtiss had never even heard of the not yet q”
- A maneuver in marching in which the marchers turn in a curving fashion to right or left so that the order of marchers does not change.
- A type of algebra where division is always defined, and in particular division by zero is meaningful.
“The real numbers can be extended to a wheel, as can any commutative ring.”
- The return to a peculiar rhythm at the end of each stanza.
- transitiveTo roll along on wheels.
“Wheel that trolley over here, would you?”
“Why should we confine a body of men to making laws, when so many of them might be more usefully employed in wheeling barrows?”
“He […] cleared the table; piled everything on the dumb-waiter; gave us our wine-glasses; and, of his own accord, wheeled the dumb-waiter into the pantry.”
- transitiveTo transport something or someone using any wheeled mechanism, such as a wheelchair.
“She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow
Along a stretch of road;
But she always ran away and left
Her not-nice load,”
“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.”
“We open in a grimy, fluorescent-lit military base somewhere in rural England, where the girl from the poster, Melanie (Sennia Nanua), is the star student in a class full of children who are wheeled in”
- dated, intransitiveTo ride a bicycle or tricycle.
- intransitiveTo 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.”
“The dog screamed, and, wheeling in terror, galloped headlong in a new direction.”
“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.”
- transitiveTo 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.”
“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.”
- intransitiveTo 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.”
“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 wing”
- transitiveTo 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;”
“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:”
“[…] upward, in the mellow blush of day,
The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.”
- intransitiveTo reload a track; to play a wheel-up.
“The crowd wanted to track to be played again, so they shouted out "Wheel it".”
Formswheels(plural) · wheels(present, singular, third-person) · wheeling(participle, present) · wheeled(participle, past) · wheeled(past)