breastwheel

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A water-wheel with radial floats or buckets, upon which the water is admitted at any point from about the plane of the axle to 45° or more above it. The water is confined to the floats by a breasting of planks or masonry, almost touching the periphery of the wheel and extending from the bottom of the sluice to near the lowest point of the wheel. If the water is admitted to the wheel at a point very near its summit and on the same side as the sluice, it is called a pitch-back wheel.

Wiktionary

1. n. A water wheel where the stream of water strikes neither so high as in the overshot wheel, nor so low as in the undershot, but generally at about half the height of the wheel, being kept in contact with it by the breasting. The water acts on the float boards partly by impulse, partly by its weight.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A water wheel, on which the stream of water strikes neither so high as in the overshot wheel, nor so low as in the undershot, but generally at about half the height of the wheel, being kept in contact with it by the breasting. The water acts on the float boards partly by impulse, partly by its weight.