gear wheel
- noun
- /ɡɪr wiːl/
- Specialized
:
engranaje
- He lies there, still conscious as one of the huge landing gear wheels rolls right over him, squashing him like the bug he is.
Examples
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The clock's mechanism relies on precise alignment between the gear wheels to keep accurate time.
-
The sand is brushed away, revealing gear wheels.
Fiction book (1992) -
He realised that it used bronze gear wheels to calculate these astronomical cycles.
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In moments of despair, he went for weeks unwashed and poorly fed, obsessed by the miscalculations of a kidney-shaped gear wheel that was used for the equation of time.
Fiction book (1992) -
The mechanic replaced the damaged gear wheel to ensure the machine operated smoothly.
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To change the direction of movement, the engineer adjusted the gear wheel within the assembly.
Synonyms
1
6.9
A round wheel with teeth that fit into another wheel to make it turn
A round wheel with teeth that makes another wheel turn in a machine
A round wheel with teeth that fits another to change speed or direction
A round gear with teeth that makes a row of holes in paper
How Big
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a wheel with teeth designed to mesh with another toothed component' is directly and compositionally derived from 'gear' (a toothed mechanism) + 'wheel' (a rotating circular object). This noun–noun compounding is a straightforward, cross-linguistically common pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will readily infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
Gear wheel is a wheel with 'teeth' at the edge called a gear, and these 'teeth' fit into another wheel so when one turns the other turns too. That's why the name means a part that makes another wheel turn and can change speed or direction.