Word.ws English Dictionary

handwheel

handwheel noun: any wheel worked by hand, whether used to allow leverage, as of a valve or a handbrake, or to allow fine adjustment, as of a set screw.

Noun

handwheel (plural handwheels)

  1. Any wheel worked by hand, whether used to allow leverage, as of a valve or a handbrake, or to allow fine adjustment, as of a set screw.
    • Front damper doors on each hopper and the back damper door of the centre hopper are opened and closed by screw gear worked from a handwheel on the fireman's side of the cab.1954 July, “British Railways Prototype Class "8" Express Passenger Locomotive”, in Railway Magazine, page 491
    • When the large handwheel seen in the illustration of a 68000 class cab is moved from "stop" to "run", the traction circuit contactors are closed and the locomotive moves off with the diesel engine running at idling speed.1964 May, “Automation in the cab—latest SNCF developments”, in Modern Railways, page 336

Forms of handwheel

pluralhandwheels
alternative formhand wheel

Origin of handwheel

From hand + wheel.

Questions about handwheel

What does handwheel mean?
Handwheel means any wheel worked by hand, whether used to allow leverage, as of a valve or a handbrake, or to allow fine adjustment, as of a set screw.
What part of speech is handwheel?
Handwheel is a noun.
What is the plural of handwheel?
The plural of handwheel is handwheels.

Words near handwheel in the dictionary

  1. handweeds
  2. handwell
  3. handwells
  4. Handwerk
  5. Handwerks
  6. handwheel
  7. handwheels
  8. handwhile
  9. handwhiles
  10. handwipe
  11. handwipes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: handwheel (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: “handwheel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/handwheel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.