18-wheeler
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A big rig truck: a semi-trailer plus the truck or tractor pulling it.
"On a cold morning in Abilene, Texas, a column of 18-wheelers crawls down bumpy, waterlogged roads, past cattle grazing on dusty shrubs."
Example
More examples"On a cold morning in Abilene, Texas, a column of 18-wheelers crawls down bumpy, waterlogged roads, past cattle grazing on dusty shrubs."
Etymology
From the total number of wheels: two front steering wheels on the tractor, plus dual wheels on each end of two axles (total of 8) at the rear of the tractor and supporting the front of the trailer, plus dual wheels on two axles at the rear of the trailer.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.