cartwheel

Etymology

cart + wheel

noun

  1. The literal wheel of a cart.
  2. A gymnastic maneuver whereby the gymnast rotates to one side or the other while keeping arms and legs outstretched, spinning for one or more revolutions.
  3. (UK, historical, obsolete slang) A crown coin; its value, 5 shillings.
    Half-a-crown is known as an alderman, half a bull, half a tusheroon, and a madza caroon; whilst a crown piece, or five shillings, may be called either a bull, or a caroon, or a cartwheel, or a coachwheel, or a thick-un, or a tusheroon. 1859, J.C. Hotten, A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words
  4. (US, historical, obsolete slang) A silver dollar of the larger size produced before 1979.

verb

  1. To perform the gymnastics feat of a cartwheel.
  2. To flip end over end: normally said of a crashing vehicle or aircraft.
    The race car hit a bump and cartwheeled over the finish line.

Attribution / Disclaimer All definitions come directly from Wiktionary using the Wiktextract library. We do not edit or curate the definitions for any words, if you feel the definition listed is incorrect or offensive please suggest modifications directly to the source (wiktionary/cartwheel), any changes made to the source will update on this page periodically.