1. A wheel designed to drive machinery, esp. that of a mill or pump, with water as the motive power.
1408. Durham Acc. Roll, in Eng. Hist. Rev., XIV. 517. Pro cariagio … unius axeltre … pro le Water-whelle.
a. 1530. J. Heywood, Play of Weather (Brandl), 461. Our floodgate, our mylpoole, our water whele.
1648. Wilkins, Dædalus, xv. 284. For if there were but such a water-wheel made on this instrument [i.e., the Archimedean screw], upon which the stream that is carried up, may fall in its descent, it would turn the Screw round.
1759. Smeaton, Exper. Enq. (1794), 2. Concerning Undershot Water Wheels.
1773. W. Emerson, Princ. Mech. (ed. 3), 240. London-bridge water-works. AB the axis of the water-wheel CD.
1830. Kater & Lardner, Mech., xiv. 179. In water-wheels, the power is the weight of water contained in buckets at the circumference.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. iii. 25. At one end was a little water-wheel turned by a brook.
1893. Sir R. Ball, Story of Sun, 242. A water-wheel, turned by Niagara, virtually derives its energy from the transformation of Sunbeams.
2. A wheel for raising water, esp. for irrigation purposes, by means of buckets or boxes fitted on its circumference.
1639. G. Plattes, Discov. Infin. Treas., vii. 32. Water wheeles … with wooden bottels which doe fill in the river, and empty themselves above into a trough of wood.
1825. J. Nicholson, Operat. Mechanic, 230. As the mule … goes round, these horizontal arms … take hold … of those arms which are fixed on the axis of the water-wheel, and keep it in rotation.
1877. Miss A. B. Edwards, Up Nile, vi. 140. The water-wheel slowly revolving with its necklace of pots.
1914. Sir W. Willcocks, in Blackw. Mag., Oct., 428/1. Water-wheels have to be employed to irrigate the old terraces.
† 3. A wheel for propelling a boat through the water; a paddle-wheel. Obs.
1787. P. Miller, in B. Woodcroft, Steam Navig. (1848), 29. An account of experiments made by Mr. Miller … in a double vessel … put in motion by his water wheel.
1814. in Scribner’s Mag. (1887), May, 518. She is a structure resting upon two boats…. The great water-wheel revolves in the space between them.
1822. Imison, Sci. & Art, I. 226. Some attempts have been made to place the water-wheels, or paddles that drive the vessel, in the middle.
