four-wheeler

Noun

four-wheeler (plural four-wheelers)

1. A horse-drawn hackney cab with four wheels, as opposed to a hansom or dogcart .
   • The local doctor was often seen passing by in a four-wheeler on his way to a house call.
   • At length we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris. And down from the box descended a thick-set working man with his rush-woven basket of tools. Morris paid the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away.1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 22, in Dracula
2. A small off-road four-wheeled powered vehicle, usually used for recreation or farm work.
   • The ranchhands use four-wheelers to move about the ranch, ferrying supplies and patrolling distant fields and pastures.
   • Reid pressured the teen to ride with him on the four-wheeler, but the teen said no "several times" because he saw Reid drinking liquor beforehand, and the ATV had bad brakes, documents state.2023 November 29, “Former officer resigns after ATV crash in Greenwood leads to endangering the welfare of a minor charge”, in 5NEWS

   Synonyms:

   quad, quad bike

3. Any vehicle with four wheels.
   • Many of the earliest locomotives in the 1830s were four-wheelers; larger models with more axles would come later.
   • The cars, of which there were five, were four-wheelers seating 32, and had wrought-iron railings round the end platforms.1954 November, P. W. Gentry, “The Lambourn Valley Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 741