English Explanatory Dictionary

breastwheel

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A water wheel where the stream of water strikes neither so high as in the overshot wheel, nor so low as in the undershot, but generally at about half the height of the wheel, being kept in contact with it by the breasting. The water acts on the floatboards partly by impulse, partly by its weight.

Word forms

breastwheel breastwheels

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *breustą Proto-West Germanic *breust Old English brēost Middle English brest English breast Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- Proto-Indo-European *kʷekʷléh₂ Proto-Germanic *hweulō Old English hwēol Middle English whel English wheel English breastwheel From breast + wheel.

This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on B Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary