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wheelhorse.

One of a team of horses which is nearest to the wheels of a carriage, as opposed to a leader or forward horse.

10 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈʍiːlhɔː(ɹ)s/Received-Pronunciation/ˈʍiːlhɔɹs/General-American/ˈwiːl-/General-American
  1. One of a team of horses which is nearest to the wheels of a carriage, as opposed to a leader or forward horse.

    US · dated
  2. A person who labors heavily for a particular cause, without being concerned about recognition.

    US · figuratively
  3. A foot-propelled vehicle; a bicycle.

    historical · obsolete
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *kʷelh₁-redup. Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Indo-European *kʷekʷléh₂ Proto-Germanic *hweulō Old English hwēol Middle English whel English wheel Proto-Indo-European *ḱers- Proto-Indo-European *-ós Proto-Indo-European *ḱr̥sós? Proto-Indo-European *h₁wers-? Proto-Indo-European *wers- Proto-Indo-European *-ḗn Proto-Indo-European *wérsēn Proto-Indo-Iranian *(w)ŕ̥šā Proto-Iranian *(w)ŕ̥šāder.? Proto-Germanic *hrussą Proto-West Germanic *hross Old English hors Middle English hors English horse English wheelhorse From wheel + horse. Sense 2 (“person who labors heavily for a cause”) is from the fact that a horse nearest to the wheels of a carriage that it is drawing does much of the pulling work.

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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.