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"This meaning has a low degree of authority, but is supposed from the context in the few cases where
the word is found." Nares.
You must sing a-down a-down,
An you call him a-down-a.
O, how the wheel becomes it! Shak.
3. A bicycle or a tricycle; a velocipede.
4. A rolling or revolving body; anything of a circular form; a disk; an orb. Milton.
5. A turn revolution; rotation; compass.
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. South.
[He] throws his steep flight in many an aëry wheel. Milton. A wheel within a wheel, or Wheels within wheels, a complication of circumstances, motives, etc. - -
Balance wheel. See in the Vocab. — Bevel wheel, Brake wheel, Cam wheel, Fifth wheel,
Overshot wheel, Spinning wheel, etc. See under Bevel, Brake, etc. — Core wheel. (Mach.)
(a) A mortise gear. (b) A wheel having a rim perforated to receive wooden cogs; the skeleton of a mortise
gear. — Measuring wheel, an odometer, or perambulator. — Wheel and axle (Mech.), one of the
elementary machines or mechanical powers, consisting of a wheel fixed to an axle, and used for raising
great weights, by applying the power to the circumference of the wheel, and attaching the weight, by a
rope or chain, to that of the axle. Called also axis in peritrochio, and perpetual lever, — the principle
of equilibrium involved being the same as in the lever, while its action is continuous. See Mechanical
powers, under Mechanical. — Wheel animal, or Wheel animalcule (Zoöl.), any one of numerous
species of rotifers having a ciliated disk at the anterior end. — Wheel barometer. (Physics) See under
Barometer. — Wheel boat, a boat with wheels, to be used either on water or upon inclined planes
or railways. — Wheel bug (Zoöl.), a large North American hemipterous insect (Prionidus cristatus)
which sucks the blood of other insects. So named from the curious shape of the prothorax. — Wheel
carriage, a carriage moving on wheels. — Wheel chains, or Wheel ropes (Naut.), the chains or
ropes connecting the wheel and rudder. — Wheel cutter, a machine for shaping the cogs of gear
wheels; a gear cutter. — Wheel horse, one of the horses nearest to the wheels, as opposed to a leader,
or forward horse; — called also wheeler. — Wheel lathe, a lathe for turning railway-car wheels. —
Wheel lock. (a) A letter lock. See under Letter. (b) A kind of gunlock in which sparks were struck
from a flint, or piece of iron pyrites, by a revolving wheel. (c) A kind of brake a carriage. — Wheel
ore (Min.), a variety of bournonite so named from the shape of its twin crystals. See Bournonite. —
Wheel pit (Steam Engine), a pit in the ground, in which the lower part of the fly wheel runs. — Wheel
plow, or Wheel plough, a plow having one or two wheels attached, to render it more steady, and to
regulate the depth of the furrow. — Wheel press, a press by which railway-car wheels are forced on,
or off, their axles. — Wheel race, the place in which a water wheel is set. — Wheel rope (Naut.),
a tiller rope. See under Tiller. — Wheel stitch (Needlework), a stitch resembling a spider's web,
worked into the material, and not over an open space. Caulfeild & S. — Wheel tree (Bot.), a tree
(Aspidosperma excelsum) of Guiana, which has a trunk so curiously fluted that a transverse section
resembles the hub and spokes of a coarsely made wheel. See Paddlewood. — Wheel urchin (Zoöl.),
any sea urchin of the genus Rotula having a round, flat shell. — Wheel window (Arch.), a circular
window having radiating mullions arranged like the spokes of a wheel. Cf. Rose window, under Rose.
Wheel
(Wheel) v. t. [imp. & p. p. Wheeled ; p. pr. & vb. n. Wheeling.]
1. To convey on wheels, or in a wheeled vehicle; as, to wheel a load of hay or wood.
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