Wheelspin

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The spinning of the wheels of a vehicle on the surface of the ground with greatly reduced friction and little movement of the vehicle, especially when starting. uncountable, usually

    "Near-synonym: wheelslip"

Verb
  1. 1
    To drive with poor traction, so that the vehicle exhibits a wheelspin.

    "It was not unusual to see an ice cream van wheelspin away, dragging a runner into the service hatch as it went, especially on the police patches: […]"

  2. 2
    To throw up (debris) from a wheelspin.

    "With only small encouragement from me, and using skills learned on a racing track, he gunned his Land-Rover forward, cut up the saloon and wheelspan a few stones its way as we turned down an unsurfaced track."

Synonyms

All synonyms
wheelslip

Example

More examples

"A computer detects wheelspin and reduces power."

Etymology

From wheel + spin.

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