wheel

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun A solid disk or a rigid circular ring connected by spokes to a hub, designed to turn around an axle passed through the center.
• noun Something resembling such a disk or ring in appearance or movement or having a wheel as its principal part or characteristic, as.
• noun The steering device on a vehicle.
• noun A potter's wheel.
• noun A water wheel.
• noun A spinning wheel.
• noun Games A device used in roulette and other games of chance.
• noun A firework that rotates while burning.
• noun Informal A bicycle.
• noun An instrument to which a victim was bound for torture during the Middle Ages.
• noun Forces that provide energy, movement, or direction.
• noun The act or process of turning; revolution or rotation.
• noun A military maneuver executed in order to change the direction of movement of a formation, as of troops or ships, in which the formation is maintained while the outer unit describes an arc and the inner or center unit remains stationary as a pivot.
• noun Slang A motor vehicle or access thereto.
• noun Slang A person with a great deal of power or influence.
• intransitive verb To roll, move, or transport on wheels or a wheel.
• intransitive verb To cause to turn around or as if around a central axis; revolve or rotate.
• intransitive verb To provide with wheels or a wheel.
• intransitive verb To turn around or as if around a central axis; revolve or rotate.
• intransitive verb To roll or move on or as if on wheels or a wheel.
• intransitive verb To fly in a curving or circular course.
• intransitive verb To turn or whirl around in place; pivot.
• intransitive verb To reverse one's opinion or practice.
• idiom (at/behind) Operating the steering mechanism of a vehicle; driving.
• idiom (at/behind) Directing or controlling; in charge.
• idiom (wheel and deal) To engage in the advancement of one's own interests, especially in a canny, aggressive, or unscrupulous way.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun An erroneous dialectal form of weel.
• To cause to turn, or to move in a circle; make to rotate, revolve, or change direction.
• To convey on wheels or in a vehicle mounted on wheels.
• To make or perform in a circle; give a circular direction or form to.
• To provide with a wheel or wheels: as, to wheel a cart.
• To cause to move on or as on wheels; rotate; cause to turn: as, to wheel a rank of soldiers.
• To turn on a wheel.
• In tanning, to submit to the action of a pin-wheel. See pinwheel, 2.
• To shape by means of the wheel, as in pottery. See potters' wheel (under potter), and throw, transitive verb, 2.
• To break upon the wheel. See break.
• To turn on or as on an axis or about a center; rotate; revolve.
• To change direction of course, as if moving on a pivot or center.
• To move in a circular or spiral course.
• To take a circular course; return upon one's steps; hence, to wander; go out of the straight way.
• To travel smoothly; go at a round pace; trundle along; roll forward.
• To move on wheels; specifically, to ride a bicycle or tricycle; travel by means of a bicycle or tricycle.
• To change or reverse one's opinion or course of action: frequently with about.
• noun A movement in drill in which a line changes front without destroying the alinement.
• noun The driving-wheel of a bicycle which has a releasing-device for freeing the pedals for coasting.
• noun A circular frame or solid disk turning on an axis.
• noun Any instrument, apparatus, machine, or other object shaped like a wheel, or the essential feature of which is a wheel: as, a mill-wheel, a spinning-wheel, or a potters' wheel.
• noun Nautical, a circular frame with handles projecting from the periphery, and an axle on which are wound the ropes or chains which connect with the rudder for steering a ship; a steering-wheel. Where a ship is steered by steam, in place of an ordinary wheel a small wheel is used, by turning which steam is admitted to the engines which turn the barrel on which the wheel-rope is wound.
• noun An instrument of torture. See to break on the wheel, under break.
• noun A firework of a circular shape which revolves on an axis, while burning by the reaction of the escaping gases. See catharine-wheel, 3, and pinwheel, 3.