Word.ws English Dictionary

epicyclic

epicyclic adjective: of or relating to epicycles.

Adjective

epicyclic (not comparable)

  1. Of or relating to epicycles.
  2. Of a gearbox, having two gears mounted so that the center of one gear revolves around the center of the other.
    • Power is derived from a British United Traction Limited "A"-type 150-h.p. six-cylinder horizontal diesel engine; this drives through a fluid flywheel, and thence through a free wheel unit to a four-speed epicyclic gearbox.1958 April, “Diesel Railbus for British Railways”, in Railway Magazine, page 275
    • The gearbox is of the self-changing compound epicyclic SE.4 type, with Sinclair fluid coupling, having a maximum torque of 750 lb./ft.1960 September, “Inter-city diesel units for the Hull-Liverpool service of the N.E.R.”, in Trains Illustrated, page 561

Origin of epicyclic

From epicycle + -ic.

Words formed from epicyclic

Phrases with epicyclic

Questions about epicyclic

What does epicyclic mean?
Epicyclic means of or relating to epicycles.
What part of speech is epicyclic?
Epicyclic is an adjective.

Words near epicyclic in the dictionary

  1. epicuticularly
  2. epicutis
  3. epicutissimin
  4. epicycle
  5. epicycles
  6. epicyclic
  7. epicyclic gear
  8. epicyclic gears
  9. epicyclical
  10. epicycloid
  11. epicycloidal

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: epicyclic (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-epicyclic.wav.

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