Word.ws English Dictionary

breastwheel

breastwheel noun: 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.

Noun

breastwheel (plural breastwheels)

  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.
    • The saw-mill was recently erected by Mr. Leavens, who is a practical millwright. It is of the kind commonly used in the United States, and the manner of applying the water is rather different from which we generally see in England. There is a fall of water of about ten feet, which, instead of being...1889, Alfred R. Wallace, A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, Chapter 2

Forms of breastwheel

pluralbreastwheels

Origin of breastwheel

From breast + wheel.

Questions about breastwheel

What does breastwheel mean?
Breastwheel means 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.
What part of speech is breastwheel?
Breastwheel is a noun.
What is the plural of breastwheel?
The plural of breastwheel is breastwheels.

Words near breastwheel in the dictionary

  1. breaststroking
  2. breastsummer
  3. breastsummers
  4. breastwear
  5. breastweed
  6. breastwheel
  7. breastwheels
  8. breastwise
  9. breastwork
  10. breastworks
  11. breasty

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: breastwheel (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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