Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person who labors heavily for a particular cause, without being concerned about recognition

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

wheel +‎ horse; from analogy with the horse that did the bulk of work in a team.

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Examples

  • A woman stood on tip-toe gritting her teeth in exasperation as she tugged at the check-rein on the big wheelhorse, which stuck obstinately in the ring.

    The Fighting Shepherdess Caroline Lockhart 1916

  • T.e only speech was made by the Solon who had the bill called up, a familiar organization wheelhorse, named Meachy T. Bangor, who quoted with unconcealed triumph from the morning's _Post_, wholly ignoring all the careful safeguards and tearing out of the context only such portions as suited his humor and his need.

    Queed Henry Sydnor Harrison 1905

  • Jim Cash was Mo Mercer's right-hand man; in the language of refined society, he, vas "Mo's toady," - in the language of Hardscrabble, he was "Mo's wheelhorse."

    The Hive of "The Bee-Hunter," A Repository of Sketches, Including Peculiar American Character, Scenery, and Rural Sports 1854

  • RJJensen 13: 40, 28 August 2009 (EDT) farm programs (AAA) had no relation to anything in Europe either -- it was thought out in Iowa and Montana, son of an old American communist wheelhorse, "Mother" Ella Reeve Bloor, benefited in the early 1920s from the patronage of Münzenberg's network.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • RJJensen 13: 40, 28 August 2009 (EDT) farm programs (AAA) had no relation to anything in Europe either -- it was thought out in Iowa and Montana, son of an old American communist wheelhorse, "Mother" Ella Reeve Bloor, benefited in the early 1920s from the patronage of Münzenberg's network.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • RJJensen 13: 40, 28 August 2009 (EDT) farm programs (AAA) had no relation to anything in Europe either -- it was thought out in Iowa and Montana, son of an old American communist wheelhorse, "Mother" Ella Reeve Bloor, benefited in the early 1920s from the patronage of Münzenberg's network.

    Conservapedia - Recent changes [en] 2009

  • "Where do you find time for poetry, you old wheelhorse!

    Success A Novel Samuel Hopkins Adams 1914

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