Word.ws English Dictionary

break the wheel

break the wheel verb: to end a pattern of oppression, inequality, injustice, or abuse.

Verb

break the wheel (third-person singular simple present breaks the wheel, present participle breaking the wheel, simple past broke the wheel, past participle broken the wheel)

  1. (idiomatic) To end a pattern of oppression, inequality, injustice, or abuse.
    • The head of one of Canada's largest unions says it's time to break the wheel and change the way businesses are operated.2020, Carol Todd, "Time to change Canada's business model: UFCW", Regina Leader-Post, 4 September 2020, page NP7
    • Finally, the fact that both protagonists are teenagers is worth considering not only as a mere feature of the dystopian fiction subgenre, but as a representation of the power of the younger generations in breaking the wheel and transforming society not only when they grow up and become adults, but...2023, Andrea Burgos-Mascarell, “Out with the Old: New Feminist Religions in Parable of the Sower and the Gilded Ones”, in Kamelia Talebian Sedehi, editor, The Role of Religion in Shaping and...
  2. (idiomatic) To instigate or enact a major change; to revolutionize; to shake up.
    • Cassandra a woman in her late 60’s was a hairdresser and owner of her own beauty salon in the UK. However, she felt like she was working long hours and never had time for herself. She describes coming to Spain as a way to ‘break the wheel’ and dedicating time to what she loves, which involves a...2019, Emma Fàbrega-Domènech, "Problematizing the ‘Good Life’ on the Costa del Sol: Detecting Diversity in Privileged Experiences of Northern European Migrant Retirees", QuAderns, Number 35, page 71
    • Polar codes break the wheel in channel coding area with its unconventional perspective of code construction than that of the traditional codes and become a youngest contender in the 5G race.2019, Arti Sharma & Mohammad Salim, "Polar Code Appropriateness for Ultra-Reliable and Low-Latency Use Cases of 5G Systems", International Journal of Networked and Distributed Computing, Volume 7...

Forms of break the wheel

third-person singular presentbreaks the wheel
present participlebreaking the wheel
pastbroke the wheel
past participlebroken the wheel

Origin of break the wheel

Presumably inspired by a scene in the episode "Hardhome" (2015) of Game of Thrones, in which Daenerys Targaryen, reflecting on her plan to reclaim the Iron Throne, vows to "break the wheel" of oppression and war.

Questions about break the wheel

What does break the wheel mean?
Break the wheel means to end a pattern of oppression, inequality, injustice, or abuse.
What part of speech is break the wheel?
Break the wheel is a verb.
What is the past tense of break the wheel?
The past tense of break the wheel is broke the wheel.

Words near break the wheel in the dictionary

  1. break the Sabbath
  2. break the seal
  3. break the silence
  4. break the story
  5. break the web
  6. break the wheel
  7. break through
  8. break time
  9. break times
  10. break up
  11. break upon the wheel

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: break the wheel (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.

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