WHEEL

Definitions

1. 1. A circular frame turning about an axis; a rotating disk, whether solid, or a frame composed of an outer rim, spokes or radii, and a central hub or nave, in which is inserted the axle, -- used for supporting and conveying vehicles, in machinery, and for various purposes; as, the wheel of a wagon, of a locomotive, of a mill, of a watch, etc. The gasping charioteer beneath the wheel Of his own car. Dryden.
2. 2. Any instrument having the form of, or chiefly consisting of, a wheel. Specifically: --
3. 3. A spinning wheel. See under Spinning.
4. 4. An instrument of torture formerly used. His examination is like that which is made by the rack and wheel. Addison.
5. 5. A firework which, while burning, is caused to revolve on an axis by the reaction of the escaping gases.
6. 6. A bicycle or a tricycle; a velocipede.
7. 7. A rolling or revolving body; anything of a circular form; a disk; an orb. Milton.
8. 8. 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. (Dict. of Needlework). -- 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.