Word.ws English Dictionary

steamroller

/ˈstimˌroʊlɚ/

steamroller noun: a steam-powered heavy road roller.

steamroller: a steam-powered heavy road roller
Image: Sandro Baldi, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

steamroller (plural steamrollers)

  1. (historical) A steam-powered heavy road roller.
  2. (broadly, informal) Any heavy road roller.
  3. (figuratively) Any seemingly irresistible force.
    • Well, I'm a steamroller, babe / I'm bound to roll all over you1970, James Taylor, “Steamroller Blues”
    • England's last line-out in World Cup rugby had been stolen by New Zealand in a dramatic conclusion to the final three years ago, but the driving maul remains a potent weapon and flanker Sadia Kabeya was decisive as England fired up the steamroller once more.2025 August 22, Mike Henson, “England open World Cup with 11-try win over USA”, in BBC Sport
  4. (slang) A pipe, used for smoking cannabis, open at both ends and having a bowl near one end.
    • It's more about him testing his wares. He rolls joints. He doesn't own a bong, hookah, smoking pipe, chillum, vaporizer, scale, dugout system, grinder, or steamroller.2005, Jane Smiley, John Kulka, Natalie Danford, editors, Best New American Voices 2006, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, →ISBN, page 242

Verb

steamroller (third-person singular simple present steamrollers, present participle steamrollering, simple past and past participle steamrollered)

  1. (transitive) To level a road using a steamroller.
    Synonyms:
    steamroll
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To proceed ruthlessly against all opposition as if with an overwhelming force.
    Synonyms:
    overpower, steamroll

steamroller meaning in Tagalog and Arabic

steamroller in Tagalog

steam-powered road roller
pison

steamroller in Arabic

steam-powered road roller
هَرَّاس harrās

Synonyms of steamroller

Forms of steamroller

Noun
pluralsteamrollers
alternative formsteam roller
Verb
third-person singular presentsteamrollers
present participlesteamrollering
past participlesteamrollered
paststeamrollered

Origin of steamroller

From steam + roller.

Words formed from steamroller

Questions about steamroller

What does steamroller mean?
Steamroller means a steam-powered heavy road roller.
What is steamroller in Tagalog?
Steamroller in Tagalog is pison. See Steamroller meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is steamroller?
Steamroller can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce steamroller?
Steamroller is pronounced /ˈstimˌroʊlɚ/ (US).
What is the plural of steamroller?
The plural of steamroller is steamrollers.

Words near steamroller in the dictionary

  1. steampunkish
  2. steampunks
  3. steampunky
  4. steamroll
  5. steamrolled
  6. steamroller
  7. steamrollered
  8. steamrollering
  9. steamrollers
  10. steamrolling
  11. steamrolls

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: steamroller (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.

Last updated:

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

Cite this entry: “steamroller.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/steamroller. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.