bikelash
bikelash noun: negative or hostile reaction to cyclists, especially from motorists or law enforcement.
Noun
bikelash (plural bikelashes)
- Negative or hostile reaction to cyclists, especially from motorists or law enforcement.
- There's a feeling among many drivers that cyclists, either by their ignorance of the law or by their blatant disregard for it, are asking for trouble. […] In one sense, the so-called bikelash has little to do with transportation modes.2011 February 16, Thomas Vanderbilt, “Rage Against Your Machine”, in Outside
- I bicycled in for Bike to Work Day last week, and I saw no bikelash on such a pleasant day. But the Seattle Weekly's Nina Shapiro emailed me that the day before, she watched as a "beefy guy" driving a Buick got out, pushed a bicyclist against a wall and then picked up the bike and heaved it at him.2011 May 21, Danny Westneat, “Getting a handle on latest 'bikelash'”, in Seattle Times
Forms of bikelash
| plural | bikelashes |
|---|---|
| alternative form | bike-lash |
Origin of bikelash
Blend of bike + backlash.
Questions about bikelash
- What does bikelash mean?
- Bikelash means negative or hostile reaction to cyclists, especially from motorists or law enforcement.
- What part of speech is bikelash?
- Bikelash is a noun.
- What is the plural of bikelash?
- The plural of bikelash is bikelashes.
Words near bikelash in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bikelash (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-bikelash.wav.
Cite this entry: “bikelash.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bikelash. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.