Word.ws English Dictionary

four-speed

four-speed noun: having four forward speeds.

four-speed: having four forward speeds
Image: CZmarlin — Christopher Ziemnowicz, a photo credit would be, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

four-speed (countable and uncountable, plural four-speeds)

  1. (attributive, uncountable) Having four forward speeds.
    • My car has a four-speed transmission. It is not as efficient as my daughter's five-speed.
    • 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
  2. A transmission that has four forward speeds (it might or might not be a manual transmission); (metonymic) a vehicle with such a transmission.
    • four-speed manual
    • four-speed automatic
    1. (historical, informal, specifically) A manual transmission with four forward speeds; (metonymic) a vehicle with such a transmission.
      • A: Was your dad's Mustang a four-speed? B: No, it was an automatic.

Forms of four-speed

pluralfour-speeds
alternative formfour speed

Origin of four-speed

The sense specific to a manual transmission came from an era when manual transmissions in passenger cars were usually four-speeds but automatics were usually three-speeds or two-speeds.

Questions about four-speed

What does four-speed mean?
Four-speed means having four forward speeds.
What part of speech is four-speed?
Four-speed is a noun.
What is the plural of four-speed?
The plural of four-speed is four-speeds.

Words near four-speed in the dictionary

  1. four-sheet
  2. four-sheets
  3. four-shooter
  4. four-shooters
  5. four-sided
  6. four-speed
  7. four-speeds
  8. four-square
  9. four-squares
  10. four-stacker
  11. four-stackers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: four-speed (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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Cite this entry: “four-speed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/four-speed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.