Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A heavy-rimmed rotating wheel used to minimize variations in angular velocity and revolutions per minute, as in a machine subject to fluctuation in drive and load.
- n. An analogous device, especially one used to regulate the speed of clockwork.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In machinery, a wheel with a heavy rim placed on the revolving shaft of any machinery put in motion by an irregular or intermitting force or meeting with an irregular or intermittent resistance, for the purpose of rendering the motion equable and regular by means of its momentum.
Wiktionary
- n. a rotating mass used to maintain the speed of a machine within certain limits while the machine receives or releases energy at a varying rate
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. (Mach.) a heavy wheel attached to machinery to equalize the movement (opposing any sudden acceleration by its inertia and any retardation by its momentum), and to accumulate or give out energy for a variable or intermitting resistance. See Fly, n., 9.
- n. A heavy wheel or disk which stores kinetic energy by rotating on a shaft, and by its momentum smoothes the operation of a reciprocating engine by reducing fluctuations of speed. It is used in certain types of machinery, such as automobiles.
WordNet 3.0
- n. regulator consisting of a heavy wheel that stores kinetic energy and smooths the operation of a reciprocating engine
Etymologies
- fly + wheel (Wiktionary)
Examples
“A CVT-controlled flywheel is particularly suited to stop-start driving situations when real-world fuel economy is often at its worst.”
“Kinetic Traction Systems Inc. is a provider of so-called flywheel power for rail systems.”
The Wall Street Journal: Clean-Tech Ventures See Plunge in Funding
“Near the flywheel was the maker badge, a repeat of the design on the glass cover, but here the stars were inlaid with small diamond-cut rubies, and the lightning bolts were coated with alternating layers of gold and silver.”
“The flywheel, which is 4 m. in diameter, serves at the same time as a driving pulley.”
“Attached to the flywheel is a pitman rod which raises and lowers a churn dasher.”
“Torotrak is a UK-based company that's developing a technology called a flywheel hybrid.”
WN.com - Articles related to Test your fuel-economy know-how
“A flywheel is a mechanical device with a significant moment of inertia used as a storage device for rotational energy.”
“Now, it's expected that all vehicles will make a good bit less power at the wheels than at the engine's flywheel, which is how they are rated from the factory.”
“The flywheel is the energy storage system rather than electro-chemical battery.”
“A flywheel is a spinning cylinder which generates power from kinetic energy, and continues to spin when grid power is interrupted.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘flywheel’.
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WF - nominal compounds (concrete)
foodstuff, banknote, crankshaft, earphone, fibreboard, fishplate, forklift, glassware, guardrail, handicraft, headband, kitchenware and 181 more...
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
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IMCO - EU nomenclature
includes words of the "Prodcom list"
abaca, abdominal, abrasive, absorbent, absorber, accelerator, accessory, account book, accumulator, acebutolol, acetaldehyde, acetamide and 4515 more...
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Wheel
lantern-wheel, trundle-wheel, trundlehead, worm wheel, cogwheel, match wheel, spur wheel, disk-wheel, star-wheel, canting-wheel, addendum circle, dedendum and 115 more...
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Steampunk
Words used quite often in steampunk
ansible, airship, chymical, valve, clockwork, dirigible, thaumaturgy, copper, bronze, difference engine, gear, rivets and 516 more...
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Round and round she goes
Things to go around and things that go around.
mulberry bush, robin hood's barn, the rosie, the bend, the block a few t..., the corner, merry go round, roulette wheel, gyroscope, in circles, the world, the clock and 29 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, F
felony, frolic, fend, fuselage, farthingale, freewheeling, frigorific, flummery, fancypants, felsitic, flagstone, flageolet and 295 more...
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Keep on truckin'
Gleanings from copies of Movin' Out, "The Journal of the Trucking Industry", and American Trucker, an advertising magazine, found at a highway service area
reefer, big rig, convoy, bobtail, cabover, tricked out, pete, peterbilt, intake brackets, sleeper, dispatcher, company driver and 138 more...
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What's next here?
thunderhead, thundercloud, cumulus, cumulonimbus, fibrous, hazy, glaciated, cirrus, nimbus, meteorology, fahrenheit, thermoscope and 285 more...
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Ute
Durable items invented by Hom. Sap.
alpenhorn, matchbox, plinth, pillow, cantilever, fulcrum, troika, cloverleaf, nib, wheelbarrow, dictabelt, cockpit and 184 more...
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batmasterson's Words
adumbrate, crepuscular, pulchritude, vainglorious bast..., bawd, enervate, gorn, caribou, vorpal, spork, defenestration, gambol and 61 more...
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Gearbox
Tweets
Looking for tweets for flywheel.
hernesheir Perhaps Ebert was suggesting that Crowley moved under his own inertia, by his own (some would think) strange lights, throwing off energy as he spun through life. Dec 10, 2011
jboyd Used by Roger Ebert in his 2011 memoir, Life Itself, in a way I can't find a good definition for: "…Aleister Crowley…was a flywheel but surely wrote one of the best Edwardian autobiographies…" (204). Dec 10, 2011