Wheelchair

//ˈwiːlt͡ʃɛə(ɹ)// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A chair mounted on large wheels for the transportation or use of a sick or disabled person.

    ""And there are aspirations that we must rightly meet - people travelling in a wheelchair should be able to get on and off the train.""

  2. 2
    a movable chair mounted on large wheels; for invalids or those who cannot walk; frequently propelled by the occupant wordnet
  3. 3
    Designed for use by wheelchairbound people. attributive
  4. 4
    Any device involving wheels designed to assist a non-human animal with locomotion. broadly

    "To build the wheelchair, Dale Ryder attached wheels from a toy plane to an axle that fits over Mrs. T’s shell."

Verb
  1. 1
    to move using a wheelchair

    "Almost all of them learned wheelchairing and all learned to manage to eat by themselves."

Example

More examples

"In the end, because of the disease, he became unable to walk and had to use a motorized wheelchair to get around."

Etymology

From wheel + chair.

Related phrases

wheelchair accessiblewheelchair basketballwheelchair curlingwheelchair liftwheelchair motocrosswheelchair racingwheelchair rampwheelchair rugbywheelchair sportwheelchair tenniswheelchair userwheelchair-bound

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.