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Glite Dictionary
🚴 A bike trick 🗑️ A rubbish bin 🚴 To do a stunt
wheelie

wheelie

5 6.6
A stunt where someone lifts the front wheel of a bike or motorcycle while riding
  • noun
  • /ˈwiːli/
translation icon : caballito
  • He turned around, started up the other side of the street, and, looking back, popped a wheelie.
  • pop a wheelie

But I, I probably, I'm going out to do some jumps and pop a few wheelies and things like that.

Examples

  • Here's Matt Younger entertaining the crowd with a long wheelie he learned in America... ...where they have competitions for it.

    A Warm December (1973)

  • Sam lifts the bike into a wheelie as the tarantula nears.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The bike sparks into life and does a wheelie before speeding out of the drive and down the road.

    Fiction book (1997)

  • But I, I probably, I'm going out to do some jumps and pop a few wheelies and things like that.

    Chris Williamson

  • But Max has taken off down the street, popping a wheelie for a block or so before she disappears into the night.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • The front wheel lifts off the ground and the heavy bike launches in a thundering wheelie.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • Plissken pulls a sudden wheelie, lifts the front of his bike up into the air, and rides on the back wheel.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • He sped up, aiming at the center of the speed bump and briefly lifted off in a wheelie.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The rider executed a stunning wheelie as he sped past the crowd.

  • To impress his friends, he decided to perform a wheelie on his motorcycle.

Surface Forms

wheelie singular
wheelies plural

Morphology

wheelie = wheel (semi-transparent) = wheel + ie

Formed by 'wheel' + colloquial suffix '-ie' to name an action/result involving a wheel; the stunt sense (lifting the front wheel) is predictable from 'wheel' but is a specialized outcome.

Etymology

Wheelie for the bike stunt comes from the word wheel with the ending -ie, because the rider lifts the front wheel, so a wheelie is a move named after the wheel being up off the ground.