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tricycle

tricycle

22 1.0
A small bike with three wheels that you pedal, often for children
  • noun
  • /ˈtraɪsɪkəl/
translation icon : triciclo
  • And I saw a little boy riding a tricycle with a face mask on.

And I had a son who at that point was two years old, and his favorite thing was his little tricycle.

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Examples

  • An unusual birdhouse and a tricycle sit in the front yard.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • On my sixth birthday my father gave me a tricycle.

  • The more expensive tricycle is the red one.

  • Well, I can tell you because the tricycle is safe.

  • A kid's tricycle rolling down the street -on its own.

  • And this is the only place a child could get to on a tricycle.

  • Her tricycle had fallen over.

  • On one occasion, he said, a child on a tricycle collided with his friend's leg.

    Blog text (29)
  • There was a rusting red tricycle sitting in a corner of the rooftop.

    Fiction book (2001)
  • On my sixth birthday, my father gave me a tricycle to ride around the neighborhood.

Synonyms

trike
vstricycle
  • Informal
5 2.9

A small three-wheeled bike for children that you pedal

is often used specifically by children rather than broadly for adult recreation

How Stable

tricycle
22 1.0
bicycle
280 1.0
to unicycle
1 7.4

Surface Forms

tricycle singular
tricycles plural

Morphology

tricycle = cycle (transparent) = tri + cycle

The prefix 'tri' (three) combines with 'cycle' (wheel/vehicle) to give the straightforward meaning 'three-wheeled vehicle'.

Etymology

The word tricycle comes from the parts tri- 'three' and -cycle 'wheel', the same -cycle you see in bicycle. So a tricycle is simply a vehicle with three wheels, which is why children often use them.