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pinwheel.

A cogged (toothed) gear.

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈpɪnˌwiːl//ˈpɪnˌhwiːl/rare

  1. A cogged (toothed) gear.

  2. A toy for children, comprising an artificial (usually plastic) stem and a flower that spins round in the wind like a tiny windmill.

  3. A firework that spins in the shape of a spinning wheel.

    Canada · US

  4. A pastry made by laying out dough flat, smearing a topping over it and rolling it up into a spiral, then baking it, resulting in a swirl of filling.

  5. Any food product consisting of layers (for example of pastry and sweet filling, or of bread and meat) rolled into a spiral.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *pinnaz Proto-West Germanic *pinn Old English pinn Middle English pinne English pin Proto-Indo-European *kʷelh₁-redup. Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *kʷekʷléh₂ Proto-Germanic *hweulō Old English hwēol Middle English whel English wheel English pinwheel From pin + wheel.

verb/ˈpɪnˌwiːl//ˈpɪnˌhwiːl/rare

  1. To spin.

    ambitransitive
    The damaged fighter jet pinwheeled out of control, the g-forces pushing the pilot so hard he couldn't reach the ejection switch.
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *pinnaz Proto-West Germanic *pinn Old English pinn Middle English pinne English pin Proto-Indo-European *kʷelh₁-redup. Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *kʷekʷléh₂ Proto-Germanic *hweulō Old English hwēol Middle English whel English wheel English pinwheel From pin + wheel.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.