From 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, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish 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 and last commiserations; a deep, guttural instigation to the horse; and the wheels of the waggonette crunched heavily away into obscurity.1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
Nautical, Transport 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.1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto X”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:
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A spinning wheel.
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A potter's wheel.
Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Jeremiah 18:3:
Turn, turn, my wheel! This earthen jar / A touch can make, a touch can mar.1878, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Kéramos:
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The breaking wheel, an old instrument of torture.
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Slang A person with a great deal of power or influence; a big wheel.
Obsolete A rolling or revolving body; anything of a circular form; a disk; an orb.
Flashing thick flames , wheel within wheel undrawn1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
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A turn or revolution; rotation; compass.
[He] throws his steep flight in many an aery wheel.1667, John Milton, “Book III”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
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Figuratively A 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.1692–1717, Robert South, Twelve Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London:
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Figuratively The 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 technology and making decisions that are reshaping the information landscape, the climate, and our livelihoods.2025 December 11, Charlie Campbell, Andrew R. Chow and Billy Perrigo, “The Architects of AI Are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year”, in Time:
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 quite born automobile. But Glenn Curtiss could push his "wheel," with those long legs of his, uphill, downhill or on the level, faster than any other boy in Hammondsport.1927 March, Popular Science, page 22:
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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.
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Mathematics, Sciences 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.
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Human sciences, Linguistics, Phonology, Prosody, Sciences The return to a peculiar rhythm at the end of each stanza.
From 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, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish 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.
Why should we confine a body of men to making laws, when so many of them might be more usefully employed in wheeling barrows?1841, “Parliamentary Masons.—Parliamentary Pictures”, in Punch, volume I, page 162:
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.1849 May – 1850 November, Charles Dickens, chapter 28, in The Personal History of David Copperfield, London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1850, →OCLC:
But two cheerful women servants appeared from what was presumably the kitchen direction, wheeling a curious wicker erection, which his small guide informed him was called Aunt Clatter—manifestly deservedly—and which bore on its shelves the substance of the meal.1916, H. G. Wells, Mr. Britling Sees It Through, Book I, Chapter 1, § 9:
On reaching the slip, the barrow was wheeled off the truck onto a scaffolding gantry built out over the wall, and the concrete tipped down a corrugated iron chute on to a steel plate.1959 December 23, Richard Hope, “Narrow Gauge Landslip”, in Railway Magazine, page 866:
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To transport something or someone using any wheeled mechanism, such as a wheelchair.
The patient was wheeled out of the ER.
She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow Along a stretch of road; But she always ran away and left Her not-nice load,1916, Robert Frost, “A Girl’s Garden”, in Mountain Interval, New York: Henry Holt & Co, page 61:
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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.1924, Bess Streeter Aldrich, chapter 3, in Mother Mason:
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 into school—or at least, the nondescript concrete room that serves as a school—with their arms, legs, and foreheads bound to their wheelchairs by leather straps.2017 February 23, Katie Rife, “The Girl With All The Gifts tries to put a fresh spin on overripe zombie clichés”, in The Onion AV Club:
My arms wheeled frantically in the air as I tried to signal for help.
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To move smoothly and easily, as if on wheels.
I wheeled through the gathering, making all my appointed stops.
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To 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.c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
The dog screamed, and, wheeling in terror, galloped headlong in a new direction.1898, Stephen Crane, The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky:
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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.1912, James Stephens, chapter 8, in The Charwoman’s Daughter:
But before he could move a step a taxi-cab turned into the Adelphi from the Strand, and wheeling in front of their faces, stopped at Calladine's door.1917, A. E. W. Mason, chapter 3, in The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel:
Enver, Jemal and Feisal watched the troops wheeling and turning in the dusty plain outside the city gate, rushing up and down in mimic camel-battle, or spurring their horses in the javelin game after immemorial Arab fashion.1922, T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Introduction, Chapter 5:
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To 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.1898, Samuel Butler, The Iliad of Homer, Rendered into English Prose, Book 17:
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.1931, Robert E. Howard, chapter 2, in Hawks of Outremer:
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To 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.1829, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Timbuctoo, lines 63–67:
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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 wings.1917 November, W[illiam] B[utler] Yeats, “The Wild Swans at Coole”, in The Wild Swans at Coole, Other Verses and a Play in Verse, Churchtown, Dundrum [Dublin]: The Cuala Press, →OCLC, page 1:
We could see the poor brute in the bottom, as the vultures came wheeling down like baroque aeroplanes; its ribs were already bare.1933, Robert Byron, First Russia, Then Tibet, Part II, Chapter 8:
As the moon wheels around Earth every 28 days and shows us a progressively greater and then stingier slice of its sun-lightened face, the distance between the moon and Earth changes, too. At the nearest point along its egg-shaped orbit, its perigee, the moon may be 26,000 miles closer to us than it is at its far point.2014 September 7, Natalie Angier, “The Moon comes around again [print version: Revisiting a moon that still has secrets to reveal: Supermoon revives interest in its violent origins and hidden face, International New York Times, 10 September 2014, p. 8]”, in The New York Times:
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To 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;1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, lines 499-501:
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:1751, Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, lines 5–8:
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[…] upward, in the mellow blush of day, The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.1839, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Sunrise on the Hills:
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To reload a track; to play a wheel-up.
The crowd wanted to track to be played again, so they shouted out "Wheel it".