Etymology Attested in the sense “rim of a wheel” since ca. 1500. Generally considered to be a use of Middle English tir(e), a clipped byform of atir (“equipment, furnishings, ornament”), whence modern attire. A less accepted theory derives it from the verb to tie. The spelling tyre was predominant in the 16th century, but largely gave way to tire in the 17th and 18th, before it was revived again outside North America in the 19th century.
1
The ring-shaped protective covering around a wheel which is usually made of rubber or plastic composite and is either pneumatic or solid.
pneumatic tyres
runflat tyres
2
The metal rim, or metal covering on a rim, of a (wooden or metal) wheel, usually of steel or formerly wrought iron, as found on (horse-drawn or railway) carriages and wagons and on locomotives.
iron tyres for the coach and iron shoes for the horse
tyres and rails of steel, and every axle with roller bearings
1 more example
It is also curious that whereas brake-blocks made of certain compositions (other than cast iron) offer improved coefficients of friction, their use can reduce adhesion, and thereby increase the liability to skid (doubtless by tending to polish the tyres) by as much as 20 per cent.1960 April, “The braking of trains”, in Trains Illustrated, page 237:
Etymology Attested in the sense “rim of a wheel” since ca. 1500. Generally considered to be a use of Middle English tir(e), a clipped byform of atir (“equipment, furnishings, ornament”), whence modern attire. A less accepted theory derives it from the verb to tie. The spelling tyre was predominant in the 16th century, but largely gave way to tire in the 17th and 18th, before it was revived again outside North America in the 19th century.
1
To fit tyres to (a vehicle).
The circular iron platform over there is used in the task of tyring the wheels, a warm job, too, by the way.1929, The Listener, numbers 41-50, page 552:
The boiled milk, that the family has not used, is allowed to cool in the same vessel; and a little of the former days tyre, or curdled milk, is added to promote its coagulation, and the acid fermentation. Next morning it has become tyre, or coagulated acid milk.1809, The Annual Register, Or, A View of the History, Politics, […] , page 954:
tyre
verb
Etymology Possibly a shortening of attire; or metathetically from a tire, with the 'a' viewed as indefinite article a.
And feeble nature cloth'd with fleshly tyre1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
But for a dreſſing for her head I thinke for her I haue a Tyer, That all Fayryes ſhall admyre.1630, Michael Drayton, The Muses Elizium, Lately diſcouered, by a New Way over Parnassvs, London: Thomas Harper, page 67: