What does "wheelslide" mean?

A condition caused when railway vehicle wheels lose adhesion when the brakes are applied, due to slippery rails, and the train slides along the track instead of slowing down.

What is a synonym for "wheelslide"?

Common synonyms include: skid, skidding.

Wheelslide

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A condition caused when railway vehicle wheels lose adhesion when the brakes are applied, due to slippery rails, and the train slides along the track instead of slowing down. countable, uncountable
"Near-synonyms: skid, skidding"

Synonyms

All synonyms

skid skidding

Example

More examples

"Andrew Hall, deputy chief inspector at the Rail Accident Investigation Branch, said: "The evidence suggests the most likely cause of this was wheelslide, almost certainly as a result of low adhesion between the wheels and the track.""

Etymology

From wheel + slide.

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