sb. Forms: see WHEEL sb. and BARROW sb.3; also 4 wil-, 6 whil-; 4 -bargh, 5 -berghe, -berwe, 6 -barugh, -berow, 7 -barrough. A barrow or shallow open box mounted between two shafts that receive the axle of a wheel at the front ends, the rear ends being shaped into handles and having legs on which it rests; also applied to similar contrivances with more than one wheel.
c. 1340. Nominale (Skeat), 218. Sikeman lith in hors-bere … And the crepul in the wilbarewe.
1394. in Archaeologia, XXIV. 308. Et in j welbargh empt’ pro stauro Maner’ xij d.
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 572/1. Cenovectorium rotatum, a whelberwe.
1533. MS. Rawl. D. 770, lf. 149. Whelebarrowes ffor laborers to serve bryklayers with.
c. 1563. Jack Juggler (1912), B iv b. I shall make thee not able to goo nor ryde But in a dungcart or a whilberow liyng on on syde.
1598. Barret, Theor. Warres, V. ii. 131. Hand-barrowes, and wheele-barrowes to carrie earth.
1678. Otway, Friendship in F., III. i. I can act the rumbling of a Wheelbarrow.
1700. T. Brown, trans. Fresny’s Amusem., 20. Another Fellow driving a Wheel-Barrow of Nuts.
1855. Delamer, Kitch. Gard. (1861), 8. Two doors,… wide enough to admit a wheelbarrow, or a small cart.
† b. transf. applied to a light carriage. Obs.
1600. Day, Begg. Bednall Gr., V. (1881), 114. To be jaunted up and down London Streets in a lethern wheelbarrow.
1625. B. Jonson, Staple of News, II. iii. You thinke I can runne like light-foot Ralph, Or keep a wheele-barrow, with a sayle in towne here To whirle me to you.
1778. Eng. Gazetteer (ed. 2), s.v. Yarmouth, People are carried here all over the town … for 6d. in what they call a coach, but it is only a wheel-barrow, drawn by one horse.
1794. Wolcot (P. Pindar), Pindariana, Hymn to Adversity. Morality … may … Throw by his wheel-barrow, and keep a carriage.
1819. Scott, Lett., in Lockhart (1837). IV. 290. You know of old how I detest that mania of driving wheel-barrows up and down, when a man has a handsome horse and can ride him.
c. In allusive and proverbial phr.: see quots.
1597. Breton, Wit’s Trenchmour, Wks. (Grosart), II. 9/1. It is not a little treason in youth, to catch age in a wheelebarrow.
1618. T. Adams, Gods Bountie, i. Wks. 864. This oppressor must needs goe to heauen,… But it will bee, as the by-word is, in a Wheele-barrow; the fiends, and not the Angels will take hold on him.
1675. Cotton, Burlesque upon B., 128. When drunk as Drum, or Wheelbarrow.
1677. W. Hughes, Man of Sin, II. ii. 36. Behold the Reason of the Wheelbarrow! That goes to rumble. Ibid., x. 159. The Believing Collier whirles right to Heaven in a Wheel-barrow.
1709. [see DRUNK ppl. a. 1 b].
d. attrib. and Comb., as wheelbarrow-load, -man, race, tub; wheelbarrow fashion advb. phr.; wheelbarrow-machine (see quot.).
1834. M. Scott, Cruise Midge, xviii. Laying hold of the navigator *wheelbarrow fashion.
1863. Hawthorne, Our Old Home, Outside Glimpses Engl. Pov. The wealthier inhabitants purchased their coal by the *wheelbarrow-load.
1856. Jrnl. Soc. Arts, IV. 402. Mr. Applegarth … has also invented a beautiful little machine for printing the borders on silk handkerchiefs, called the *wheelbarrow machine, from its being worked by the hand round the cloth, which remains stationary.
1712. J. James, trans. Le Blond’s Gardening, 109. The *Wheelbarrow-Men make five or six Stages, according to the Length of the Way.
1788. Massachusetts Spy, 26 Nov., 2/1. It is said the perpetrators were of that class called wheelbarrow men, but this is rather improbable, as their object did not appear to be plunder.
1837. D. Walker, Sports & Games, 341. *Wheelbarrow Race…. Along this course, over the bridge, and up to the goal, the candidates must drive their barrows blindfolded—if they can.
1833. Loudon, Encycl. Archit., § 731. More economical to convey the milk thither in *wheelbarrow tubs.
Hence Wheelbarrow v. trans., to convey in a wheelbarrow (whence Wheelbarrower, Wheelbarrowing vbl. sb.); Wheelbarrowful, as much as a wheelbarrow holds.
1721. Amherst, Terræ Filius, No. 44 (1726), 244. The greatest part of his heavy compliments are *wheel-barrow’d from the lime-kiln.
1887. Baring-Gould, Gaverocks, xiv. Onions … wheelbarrowed into the town.
1893. W. Wallace, Scot. Yest., 73. He became the regular *wheelbarrower at the Castle.
1832. Manchester Times & Gaz., 3 March, 3/4. Prices would rise, in fact, till all men became pebble merchants; till cart-loads of gravel, and *wheelbarrowfuls for small change, circulated in the community at something about the present market price of that commodity.
1837. Thackeray, Ravenswing, viii. The theatre servants wheeled away a wheelbarrow-full.
1851. B’ham & Midl. Gard. Mag., April, 31. At the rate of one wheelbarrow full to every twelve of soil.
1893. W. Wallace, Scot. Yest., 74. Often I saw him pausing in his *wheelbarrowing.
