Wheeled

Part of speech: adjective

Pronunciation: /wiːld/

Definitions

1. Possessing circular mechanisms that enable motion
2. Having circular devices attached to facilitate rolling transport
3. Fitted with round components designed to allow easy movement

Etymology: The past tense and past participle of "wheel" carries a surprisingly old idea: the wheel itself was named for turning. Its ancestor, reconstructed as Proto-Indo-European "kʷékʷlos", is a reduplication of a root meaning "to turn; to revolve around", so the word literally meant something like "the thing that turns and turns". Over the Germanic period it became "hwehwlą" and then Old English "hwēol", before settling into the Middle English forms that led to modern "wheel". Related words are spread across the Indo-European family. Dutch "wiel", German "Rad" aside, Norwegian and Swedish "hjul" and Russian "kolesó" share the same ancient base, and Greek "kýklos", meaning "circle", belongs to the same family of words. The shared sense of circling and revolving runs through almost all of them. The adjective "wheeled" describes things fitted with wheels, so it inherits the core sense of rotation directly from that old root.

Synonyms: rolled, carted